


curse the beauty, curse the queen

by empirestrikesben



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ben Solo Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Palpatine's influence slowly dwindled, And Rey and Ben both grew up in powerful Naboo families each vying for supremacy, Arranged Marriage, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family Drama, Happy Ending, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Millennium Falcon - Freeform, Politics, Queen of Naboo Rey, Senator Ben Solo, Sharing Clothes, Soft Ben Solo, What if Anakin Skywalker never turned to the dark side?, canonverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 63,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23884843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empirestrikesben/pseuds/empirestrikesben
Summary: “I don’t mean to speak out of turn,” said Ben, drawing on every ounce of patience he could muster, because no matter how angry he was he would not — under any circumstances — yell at his grandmother, “but I would rather be slowly digested for a thousand years by a sarlacc than marry Rey Palpatine.”---In a world with no Darth Vader, no Empire, and no rebellion, Naboo Senator Ben Solo and former Naboo Queen Rey Palpatine are forced into an arranged engagement by their families under one condition: they must first spend one week together in Ben’s family retreat in the Lake Country, Varykino.Amidst a backdrop of the Naboo countryside, Ben and Rey discover what their relationship could be without the pressures of the Galactic Senate, the royal court, or their family’s expectations.They quickly realize, however, that there’s far more to this arrangement than meets the eye, and there are political forces at work that threaten to disclose dark secrets kept long hidden by both their families...
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 387
Kudos: 786





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! I'm excited to be posting the first chapter of my new fic. Hoping to be able to update once a week or so, dependent on how busy my personal schedule gets over the next little while. 
> 
> This fic was inspired by a conversation I had with my husband about all the possible "what-if's" of Star Wars. What if Anakin Skywalker didn't fall to the dark side, and instead left the Jedi order altogether? What would happen to Palpatine years later trying to reclaim his former glory? I won't say more for fear of spoiling the story!
> 
> In the meantime, come hang out with me on twitter at [@empirestriksben](https://www.twitter.com/empirestriksben) or Tumblr [empirestrikesben](https://www.empirestrikesben.tumblr.com)

Of all the harebrained schemes and far-fetched plans his grandmother had ever cooked up, she had finally arrived at one so nonsensical, so insane, that Ben could not countenance it without an argument. 

“I don’t mean to speak out of turn,” said Ben, drawing on every ounce of patience he could muster, because no matter how angry he was he would not — under any circumstances — yell at his grandmother, “but I would rather be slowly digested for a thousand years by a sarlacc than marry Rey Palpatine. There must be a way you can get me out of this one.”

“Why would I want to get you out of this?” Padmé Amidala said firmly over the sound of her pen scratching across paper, an uncommon but not unheard of form of communication she employed. “It was my idea.”

The news hit Ben like a blaster bolt to the chest. He recovered after a moment to sputter indignantly at such a declaration.

“Grandmother, I’m afraid I don’t understand. There isn’t a person in the entire galaxy who has hurt our family more than Sheev Palpatine, and you wish for me to marry his granddaughter? A woman with whom I have had a thousand times more fights than pleasant conversations!”

“So you admit you have had _some_ pleasant conversations with her then,” said Padmé, looking up from her writing to meet his eyes in a knowing glance. She _couldn’t_ know though. 

Not that there was anything to know. 

Theoretically, were there a moment in time when he and the former Queen of Naboo had exchanged something more than a politically charged shouting match, he was certain that no one else had overheard them. 

“Well you’re right about one thing, Ben — you don’t understand,” she said, getting to her feet and he stood quickly to follow her. “You are strong, intelligent, steadfast, and I am honoured every day that you chose to follow in my footsteps and take a place in the Galactic Senate to represent our planet. However, while you may not feel like it now, you are also young, foolish, and have far too much of my late husband’s hot temper in you. Please, trust me on this. I would not lead our family astray.”

“I never meant to suggest—” 

Ben cut himself off at the raise of her hand. She stepped around the large wood desk, her deep blue velvet robes swirling around her, and grey hair falling into loose curls that sat gently on her slender shoulders. 

“I know you didn’t. All will be discussed later. Now, please deliver this to Master Obi-Wan for me when you head back to Coruscant, and Ben—” she paused before handing him the letter, and he met the gaze of her warm brown eyes like looking into a mirror, “please try to accept this news. Know that I would not ask this of you were it not of the greatest importance to our family.”

He took the letter from her hands and looked down at the floor, suddenly unable to meet her stare at such an emotional and difficult request. 

“I will try, grandmother,” he said. “For you, I will try.”

* * *

Rey sat as far away from her grandfather as she could without being impolite, avoiding as best she could the gaze of his beady eyes and scarred, deformed visage. This is how it was. How it had always been. 

She didn’t allow herself to dwell on any thoughts that crossed her mind of how different life would be once her grandfather passed. She knew he would sense such thoughts, and the fleeting and shameful feeling of want that would come with them, so she simply let them float by unannounced, paying them no more attention than she did to what specific colour the walls of his hospice room were, or what flavour of nutrition pack the nurse droids would bring him this evening. 

“My granddaughter... my beautiful granddaughter…” Sheev Palpatine’s voice rasped. “Closer, closer…”

Rey inched closer on the chair seated beside his bed, breathing through her mouth in an attempt to ease the stench that radiated from his bed. She fixed the skirt of her dress over her legs, picking at a small thread that had come loose from the fabric. 

“We must not let this latest slight by the Skwalkers faze us,” he said, getting straight to the point of her visit this afternoon. “The Skywalker boy… is a trifling concern. Merely a hot-headed young man. Nothing you haven’t handled before.” 

Rey could attest to that. Enough young, hot blooded men had tried to woo her over the years, promising her a life of riches and pleasures beyond imagine, even when she was Queen and had want for nothing. Senator Ben Solo, however, had never been one of them. Always the gentlemen. Or, perhaps simply never interested. Not in _that_ at least. 

“It is most certainly the former Queen Amidala who has had the largest hand in all this…” her grandfather cut off as an unsettling cough rattled through his chest, “a lingering grudge, all these years later, despite what her husband did to our family… no matter. You are strong, Rey. Ever since my son and his wife were killed, you’ve been so strong…”

 _Why did he have to bring it up_ , she thought as the images came back to her unbidden in flashes. A woman screaming. Blue light streaking across her vision. 

The memories had been with her as long as she could remember, but it was the meaning of them that her grandfather had illuminated for her when she was still just a teenager. 

They were her mother’s screams, and the clear blue light of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, cutting down her family with one swipe of his Jedi weapon.

Now, the family that had torn hers apart and sentenced her to a life of her grandfather’s _care_ , was the one she was being forced to marry into. Although her grandfather put on a mask of outrage, she knew such a proposal would never have gotten so far without a modicum of his approval. More than that, she knew why he would agree to such an otherwise detestable idea. 

Despite the outwards appearance of opulence and power the Palpatines delicately maintained over the years, the truth of the matter was, they were destitute. 

Her two terms as Queen of Naboo had been the only thing keeping them afloat. Her rightful reign, he called it. The thing her grandfather had been preparing her for her entire life. Sometimes, it felt like it was the only thing she was created for at all. 

So when the Court had rejected her bid for a third term as Queen of Naboo, it destroyed what remained of her grandfather’s spirit, and their influence as a family had not merely dwindled, it had evaporated. Their resplendent palace in Theed was merely a hollow shell of it's former glory, the only staff left on were those that tended to the hospital wing that her grandfather spent almost every minute of the day in. 

Rey was grateful for the temperate climate and bountiful vegetation of Naboo, as the cold nights and empty kitchen cupboards would have been much worse on an Outer rim planet the likes of Tatooine or Jakku. Each night when she huddled under whatever threadbare blankets had not been sold off to pay the land tax, she tried to count herself lucky for Naboo’s natural wonders. 

Now though, all those lonely cold nights felt for nought. Her grandfather hadn’t only failed to save their fortunes, he was now sacrificing _her_. All so they could remain in the eyes of the other powerful families of Naboo as wealthy and stable as when her grandfather had been a Senator himself. 

“You… resent me for this,” her grandfather said, his rattling voice cutting through her thoughts, which had unconsciously run into the territory of bitterness. “Place your blame where it belongs, Rey. Not at the feet of your dear, sickly grandfather. Let the Skywalkers alone carry your hatred on their arrogant shoulders.”

Rey steeled her emotions into something resembling calm, though a storm still raged just below the surface. It would not do any good to turn her anger towards her own family. Now was the time for solidarity. 

“There are still some avenues left to us. I will do all that is in my power to prevent you from the shame of marrying the Skywalker heir,” he said, for a moment his voice taking on the strength and confidence of a much younger man. “My granddaughter, to do this I will need your unconditional trust and service. Can you give me that?”

“I will try, grandfather,” she said. “For you… I will try.”

* * *

Ben tapped his fingers on the long table in front of him, ignoring his mother’s furtive glances and father’s ill-disguised throat clearing from across the table. Grating on his family’s last nerve was nothing new. As it was, he was shocked his parents had even shown up for this meeting, although he supposed even _they_ would take one day off of being as far away from each other and him as the galaxy would allow to witness their only child be unwillingly betrothed to their family’s nemesis. 

Force, what a day, and it was not yet noon. 

“Nervous, Ben?” his grandmother asked from the head of the table. He stopped tapping his fingers, resisting the temptation to sit on his hands like his mother used to get him to do when he was a boy. 

“I’m alright,” said Ben. At that moment the doors of the stately dining room opened and the Palpatines, led by the Skywalker's protocol droid, entered the room. 

“May I present Sheev and Rey Palpatine,” said Threepio.

The four Skywalkers stood and bowed to their guests, neither of whom awarded them the same deference. 

“Thank you, Threepio,” said Padmé, “you may leave us now.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Threepio said, and walked out of the room with his familiar robotic movements. The use of his grandmother’s former title, and the absence of either of the Palpatine’s, did not slip past Ben’s notice, nor did he imagine anyone else’s in the room. 

Ben focused fully on the two guests who waited tentatively at the entrance of the room, standing by until they were invited in further. 

Sheev Palpatine was in worse shape than Ben had ever seen him, and yet still the sight of him struck fear deep into his heart. Seated in a hoverchair, Palpatine’s disfigured face seemed even more grotesque and ancient, his eyes listless and foggy. Ben wondered how much of it was a ruse. 

Six years ago when Ben had first been elected to the Senate, Palpatine had been the most lively he’d been in years, at least that’s what whispered through the halls of the Senate Building. He still had the use of his legs back then, and the veteran Senators told Ben it was the man’s granddaughter being newly elected as the Queen of Naboo that had put a swing in his step. 

Sure enough, whenever Queen Rey had visited the Senate to speak to local state affairs, Palpatine had always hovered just behind her shoulder, hissing in her ear low enough that Ben could never hear, but behind her painted face and overly stylized hair, whatever he said always seemed to perturb her. There were very few times Ben could recall seeing Rey without her grandfather lurking just behind, and at the memory of their last encounter alone, he finally turned his attention to the younger Palpatine. 

Ben sucked in a breath, which did not go unnoticed by his mother, and nearly cursed himself for being so obvious. Not that any neutral observer would judge him guilty here. It wasn’t his fault he’d never seen Rey Palpatine without her face caked in white regal paint, and her figure covered up in the heavy silks and outrageous outfits that befitted her when she was Queen. 

Nothing could have prepared him for the smattering of freckles that cascaded like constellations across her warm tanned skin and pink cheeks. He didn’t know her hair was naturally chestnut brown, and even pulled into three tight buns at the back of her head, made her look far more fair than the wigs she donned at Court and in the Senate. Certainly, he was unaccustomed to seeing her in a form-fitting black gown that left very little to the imagination, and Ben realized very suddenly that he needed to be sitting down quite soon if he was ever going to leave this room in one piece. Because if there was at least one thing familiar about Rey, it was the look of absolute derision with which she regarded him. 

“Sheev,” said his grandmother, pulling Ben out of the trance that Rey’s stunning appearance had placed him in. “How lovely it is to see you again. How many years has it been?”

“Two, I believe,” said Palpatine, clearly trying to hide the waver in his ancient voice. “At Queen Meridia’s coronation it would have been.”

Rey’s eyes narrowed at Ben as both of them remembered a _certain_ part of that evening. He’d always wondered if Rey had told her grandfather what transpired. Maybe one day he’d ask her. They’d have lots of free time with little to talk about once they got married, after all. 

If that thought didn't terrorize him enough to cool his blood, what happened next certainly was. 

“Now here we are, selling our grandchildren off to each other just to settle an old score,” said Palapatine. “How lovely indeed.”

Padmé remained as friendly and calm as ever. “Why don’t you take a place at the table, Sheev. Then we’ll discuss this properly.”

Only when the Palpatines settled in at the end of the long table did Ben return to his seat with the rest of his family. 

“Now I may not know the proper protocols for all this business, but I just want to say one thing before we all get started,” Han Solo said, surprising no one. Why, _why_ had his father been invited to this, Ben sighed. “Whatever happens here, whatever agreements we all come to, I don’t want my boy being forced into something he doesn’t want or isn’t ready for.” 

Contrition flooded Ben’s face and he mentally amended his earlier thought. He was glad his father had been invited. Han Solo may be uncouth and wholly unable to pick up on the finer points of polite society, despite nearly thirty years of marriage to his mother, but at least Ben knew there was one person in the room looking out for him. 

“Certainly nobody here wants that, Han. For either party,” said Padmé, turning to the rest of the table. “All that’s being proposed is simply that… a proposal. I believe, as Sheev does, that our families have been in conflict for far too long. Our planet, which we both love dearly, has suffered for inconsequential disputes. Together, we could be far more powerful than we have been apart. This is merely one way we could unite our two families.”

Padmé gestured to the Readers in front of each of their place settings before continuing. 

“I asked Sheev to have his litigation droids draw up a proposal, and ours did as well. Those two proposals have been combined into the document you see before you, which sets out the terms of both the engagement, and marriage if it were to go through.”

Ben’s heart leapt into his throat as he regarded the Reader with a newfound dislike, as he now knew that it contained the detailed stipulations of one possibility of his future life. His future life as Rey Palpatine’s husband. 

What would it even be like to be married to her? Would they be expected to be seen in public frequently with each other? Would they spend time in each other’s company in private? Would they be married in _every_ way, or free to be with whoever they wanted outside their marriage? Ben was struck by the thought that the answers to all those questions and more were contained in this neat little document that litigation droids had drawn up for him, and was sitting right here for his entire immediate family to peruse. He shuddered at the thought, gingerly reached for the Reader, and flicked it on. 

“This is a significant income you would be paying to my family, even during the engagement period of this agreement,” Rey’s clipped Core World accent startled him and he looked down the table at her. She was already breezing through pages of the document while he’d been sitting here ruminating on their false marriage that wasn’t even necessarily going to happen yet. “Such a sum is not necessary, and insults my family’s great fortunes.”

“Thank you for speaking up, Rey,” his grandmother said with an irresistible smile, “we of course made no intention to offend. It is traditional in many marriages of the Naboo aristocracy that a large sum be paid to the bride’s family for the _honour_ of allowing the groom to be wed to her.”

Rey began to respond, but her grandfather cut her off.

“The money is trifling, my dear. Perhaps if you were still Queen, we may have asked for more. Now, however… this is a more than fair sum,” he said, his decrepit hand patting her exposed forearm. The sight made Ben’s skin crawl, and evidently Rey’s as well, as something about her seemed to shudder from within. 

A protective beast buried deep within Ben’s chest growled. He suddenly felt as though he would do anything to pluck that troubled, pained ache from her heart and banish it to the outer reaches of the galaxy forever. 

The Rey he knew from the Senate was fierce, resolute. A force to be reckoned with. Not this demure woman sitting across from him, defeated and relenting in the face of her grandfather’s cruelty. If they were to be married to each other, he wanted Rey to be real with him. To know she would never have to acquiesce or accommodate any cruelties the way she did her grandfather’s. 

Then it dawned on him, he held power here. Power to let her know that she wasn’t worthless, not to him. That if they were going to be bound to this by their families, at least they would not have to be alone. 

So he did the only thing he could think of, and relying on a memory of their very first argument ever, he said:

“Maybe you could use the money for that bounty you've been threatening to put on my head for the past six years.”

The room fell as silent as a whisper. Before her grandfather could cry impertinence, before his parents or grandmother could begin to make stumbling apologies on his behalf, Rey simply said:

“I'll consider it.”

While her mouth remained a firm unwavering line, a glint of a smile lifted her eyes ever so slightly, just for him. Ben decided that even if nothing else good happened today, he would consider it a win, just for the satisfaction of making Rey Palpatine smile.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw his parents exchange a strikingly fond glance in each other’s direction, as if reminiscing on an old shared memory as well. The sight made the pinched tension in his shoulders loosen ever so slightly. 

Between his grandmother’s calm sensibilities and parent’s no-nonsense tenacity, maybe — just maybe — he might get through this ordeal unscathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed Chapter 1, and Subscribe if you'd like to read more!
> 
> References:  
> [How Naboo's government works](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Monarch_of_Naboo)  
> [All about the Galactic Senate](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Senate)  
> [Sarlacc](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sarlacc)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There’s one more thing that I’m afraid we’re going to insist on,” said Padmé, looking pointedly away from her grandson. “I wish for Ben and Rey to spend a week at our family retreat in Varykino. Alone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it - I updated only one week later! Thank you to everyone who sent in kind and encouraging messages telling me to keep writing. I hope this update adds a little ~spice~ to the plot and makes it clear where we’re headed next. Should be the last sort of ‘intro’ chapter before really getting to the meat of the story. 
> 
> As always, come hang out on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/empirestriksben) or [tumblr](https://www.empirestrikesben.tumblr.com) ! Enjoy!

The Skywalker’s home was nothing if not beautiful. It was slightly smaller than her grandfather’s palace, but where it fell short in size, it more than made up for in warmth, comfort, and grandeur. Rey knew that it must owe its ornate allure to it’s equally beautiful matriarch that looked after the maintenance and decoration of the home. Despite her reservations about the woman, Rey had to admit that Padmé Amidala had taste. 

As for the rest of the Skywalkers, she was unsure what to make of them. 

The protocol droid that had greeted them was more impertinent than her grandfather would have allowed any of their servants to be. Han Solo, the ‘former’ smuggler who she knew had brought many scandalous headlines to the holonet before, was almost everything she pictured. Brash, discourteous, but somehow also charming and caring. His wife Leia, had remained surprisingly tight-lipped so far throughout the meeting, offering only one-word comments here and there if a particularly egregious clause arose. From the stories she’d heard around the Senate chambers, Rey knew her to be a fiery woman though, and wondered if she was utilizing every ounce of diplomacy she could muster to remain cool-headed throughout the proceedings, to ensure that at least one of them would be. 

As for their son, Rey was at a loss with what to think. 

Senator Ben Solo confounded her in every way. It was clear from the way his father had interrupted the introductions that he wanted this arrangement no more than she did, yet he didn’t seem to be taking it out on her in the slightest. 

Where he was usually bristly and choleric in the Senate chambers, disagreeing with her publicly every chance he got, here he seemed softer. Maybe it was the comfort of being in his family home, surrounded by loved ones, that he didn’t feel the need to be so defensive towards her. Instead, his approach was bordering on… _kind_. 

He’d defended her in the face of her grandfather’s callous barbs, sharing a private in-joke with her in what could have only been an attempt to lighten her mood. He asked questions here and there about some of the clauses in the agreement, but otherwise listened quietly to his grandmother’s explanations. 

Then of course there was the strange matter of his gaping, blushing and awkward sputtering when she had first entered the room. Rey had no clue what to make of that irregularity. She chalked it up to the surprise of seeing each other again after a few years apart, and perhaps the memory of their last encounter. 

Truthfully, she was slightly taken aback by the sight of him as well. 

Somehow in the past couple years she had forgotten how particularly arresting his strong features were. The cut of his sharp jaw, the intensity in his warm brown eyes, the curtain of dark hair that framed his pale face. She had always found him striking in an unusual but undeniably handsome way. She could have been betrothed to worse looking people to say the very least.

“Let's move onto some of the other clauses, shall we?” said Padmé, doing her very best to keep the atmosphere in the room pleasant. “Are they any hesitations about the venue for the wedding?”

Rey scanned the Reader until she found the clause that stipulated the wedding venue. Her spirits dropped as she read it. It would be at her grandfather’s manor in Theed. 

Evidently, she was not the only one disappointed. 

“Well, I always imagined that Ben would keep the family tradition of getting married in a secret, scandalous affair, at Varykino like the rest of us,” said Leia with a sly smile directed towards her family. 

Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker's secret marriage she had heard the tales of before, but Ben's parents as well? It was a family of rebels she was marrying into then. How rotten. 

“I must insist,” said her grandfather, wearing one of his deceptive smiles, turning towards her in a mockery of the loving way that Ben’s mother had regarded her family, “if I have to give my dear granddaughter away, it would be far more bearable to do so on home ground.”

Rey was certain that his false put-on of a loving grandfather would win the Skywalkers over with ease, but there must have been something in her face that betrayed her deeper thoughts.

“Well, what does my bride-to-be think?” said Senator Solo. Rey turned sharply towards him to find his eyes boring deep into hers, his expression open and concerned as though her thoughts were painted across her face instead of buried under layers of armour. 

The way he could read her so easily was unnerving, and if her grandfather had even an inkling of suspicion that the Senator was onto some kind of discord in her family, he would never let her forget it. 

“I… I have no strong feelings about it,” she said firmly in an attempt to deflect any more softness he might turn towards her. Ben Solo’s mouth quirked up into a familiar grin. 

“That would be a first for you,” he said. Rey narrowed her eyes at him. 

“Well apologies that I have spent more time mentally planning your funeral than I have our wedding.”

“Nothing’s stopping you from planning both!”

“Please!” Padme Amidala said, for the first time that afternoon looking haggard and out of her depth. Every diplomat, no matter how professional, has their breaking point. Her grandfather had taught her that much to be sure. Perhaps this arranged marriage was Padmé's. “There’s no need to be uncivil. If it is important for the Palpatines to have the wedding hosted in their home, then we accept.”

Her grandfather dipped his head into the slightest of bows towards Padmé. Rey could see him mentally tick that one into the 'win' category. By her count, based on her grandfather’s reactions over the course of the afternoon, she surmised they had just about tied. Except her and the Senator, for whom every agreed upon clause was one more loss. 

Apparently, their families thought that they hadn’t yet been tortured enough. 

“There’s one more thing that I’m afraid we’re going to insist on,” said Padmé, looking pointedly away from her grandson. “I wish for Ben and Rey to spend a week at our family retreat in Varykino. Alone."

Rey's cheeks burned, a terrible lightheadedness spread through her. She looked resolutely out a stained glass window on the far wall of the hall, as though it was very suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. No matter, she could feel every eye on her, except the Senator she surmised, who was well known for being quick to blush. 

“Certainly there is no… I don't know why...” the Senator began to stammer, and Rey peeked a look at him. Sure enough, his usually pale face was ashen, save for the bright pink spots that had appeared on his cheeks. “I can’t imagine what the purpose of such an excursion would be,” Senator Solo finally managed to get out in a strained tone. 

“You… can’t imagine?” his father helpfully supplied. Rey felt her blush deepen at his indecent insinuation. 

There was no way she should be expected to endure this. What she would give for that protocol droid to come back and whisk her away from this entire situation... Even the ground beneath her chair turning to quick sand and falling into a cavernous tunnel with a murderous snake would be preferable to this. 

“I meant to say,” said Senator Solo with an increasingly raised voice, “I don’t see why such a purpose is necessary. This is nothing more than a political marriage of convenience. A — how was it put — way to unite our two families, so that our planet may no longer suffer for our _inconsequential disputes_.” The Senator’s tone dripped with sarcasm at the last two words. “I do not wish to be subjected to Rey Palaptine’s company any more than she wishes to be inflicted upon mine.”

For once, they were in total agreement. 

“On the contrary,” her grandfather’s weak voice floated down the table. “It was us who first suggested the retreat.” 

Rey’s heart dropped like a stone into her stomach, and she tried to school her features so as to not give away how utterly left out of the loop she had been. 

“It is customary in many Naboo aristocratic families for the bride to be given the opportunity to… evaluate her intended husband before the wedding. To ensure that his presence is pleasing to her,” her grandfather intoned with a casual air, as though he was merely telling a humorous story. To Rey the anecdote was anything but humorous. 

Is that what was expected of her on such a retreat? To _evaluate_ the Senator on matters with which she was completely inexperienced save for the overheard salacious stories of her handmaidens' risqué tales, back when they had been able to afford to have any of course.

Inexplicably, her grandfather continued.

“One could tell many a story of arrangements being called off after a… underwhelming performance,” he said with a breathy chuckle. “Why I remember when the Lord of Theed —”

“Wait, hold on.”

Rey could have sworn in her entire life she had never heard someone interrupt her grandfather in the middle of a story. Yet there Senator Ben Solo sat, his hands splayed out on the table in front of him, leaning forward in his seat to look between the two grandparents seated at either end of the table. Clearly the interruption had stunned her grandfather too, as the room fell silent waiting for the Senator to continue. 

Now, Rey saw what his plan was laid out in front of her clear as day. Evidently, so did the Senator. 

“You’re telling me, if Rey spends one week with me alone in Varykino and still hates my guts, this whole thing gets called off?” he said, sounding all of a sudden much more like his father, the corners of his mouth curving up into a sly Solo smirk. Rey too looked earnestly between Padmé and her grandfather, her spirits raised at the possibility of such a convenient and simple loophole. 

“Yes,” said Padmé Amidala, a little tensely. “It is our wish for you to try to get to know each other, and if you remain displeased, these negotiations will end there.”

As Padmé and her grandfather stared each other down in a battle to see who would blink first, Rey and Ben Solo came to a silent agreement with just one small glance. 

One week alone together would drive them to the brink of murder, not love. 

The agreement would be dead in the water before it even began. 

This was their way out. 

“Alright,” said Rey, and with a nod to Senator Solo, followed up with, “we’ll do it.”

* * *

Only when the agreement had been signed by both parties, a significant sum had been transferred to the Palpatine’s credit account by his grandmother, and Threepio had escorted the Palpatines out of the house could Ben finally breathe easy. 

Two days. That’s when his freedom would end, and he and Rey would travel to Varykino for the week. After which, she would either deem him suitably marriageable and shackle them together forever, or -- the far more likely scenario -- would toss him aside for being the most intolerable man she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. That is, if they didn’t kill each other first. 

While a certain sense of security lay ahead with the plan, it had not abated his sense of nervousness around the entire situation. A week alone with Rey Palpatine would still be abominable. Plus, after the trip was over and Rey rejected the arrangement, the rumours would follow him around the Senate halls for years to come. As if there wasn’t enough gossip already about his love life, or lack thereof. 

Any new, young Senator usually dealt with some scrutiny of the sort, but the holonet particularly loved to pick on him, likely hoping for another scandal to rival his grandmother’s own. There was little danger of him making a member of the Jedi fall in love with him strongly enough to leave the Order, but failed engagement to the former Queen of Naboo would be the perfect thing to feed the vultures for a several months. 

The first test of it came shortly after the Palpatines had departed and his parents bid him farewell after a terse few hours of attempted civility. Ben retreated to the study to place a call to Queen Meridia. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Senator Solo?” asked the Queen, her blue hologram hovering just above his desk. 

“The pleasure is all mine, Your Majesty,” said Ben. “I have an urgent request. I am needed on personal business for one solar week beginning two days from now. There is a meeting of the Mid-Rim committee that I will most unfortunately be missing, and I need to ask if you would be able to take my place.” 

Her painted features paused in thought for a moment. Sometimes, with her regal make-up on, he could almost mistake her for Rey. But where he and Rey had fought through the fire of being fresh-faced political novices, navigating the tumultuous and ruthless galactic political world together, challenging each other’s every step, and always fighting for dominance, Meridia looked to him more like an authority figure. It’s why he was not surprised when she agreed to his request with little hesitation. 

“May I ask, is there trouble in your family? Or anything that I may be of assistance with?” Queen Meridia asked. 

“Thank you for your kind offer, Your Majesty,” said Ben with a strained smile. “There is no discord in my family, merely the common expectations of a young man who’s the last of his bloodline.”

“Ah, I see,” said Meridia, clearly torn between politeness and curiosity. To Ben’s misfortune, curiosity won out. “An arranged marriage is in your future then?”

Ben sucked in a deep breath and cleared his throat. “It is… a possibility, yes.”

“May I ask…” 

Ben wished that she wouldn’t, but he was also not going to refuse a request from the Queen of his planet, especially when she was the one doing him a favour. 

“It is to your predecessor. The Lady Rey Palpatine,” he said quickly, as if he got the words out faster they would be easier to say. It didn't work. 

Even through the grainy hologram Ben could see her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. 

“I see,” she said, her shock barely contained. His and Rey’s passionate antagonism was well known at Court and in political society on Naboo. “Well I certainly understand the gravity of such a situation. I will attend the committee meeting and any other matters that arise in your absence. Please give my regards to Rey when you see her.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty, I will,” said Ben, kicking himself a little for telling her. Of course they were friends. “Farewell.”

“Farewell, Senator.”

Ben signed off of the hologram and flopped back into his chair with a deep sigh. He regretted telling the Queen almost immediately. Duty be damned, the fewer people who knew the better. It would be impossible to hide entirely of course. Once this week was up, Palpatine himself would find some way to ensure that no one in the Galactic Senate hadn’t heard how thoroughly Senator Solo of Naboo had disappointed his granddaughter. 

Why, why had his grandmother put him in such a position. His family most of all should know the sense of disappointment he could strike at the heart of people. There seemed to be a vacuum of logic in her decision to allow Sheev Palpatine of all people to infiltrate their family like this. 

It had been many years now that his grandfather had passed, but Ben couldn’t imagine she had forgiven Palpatine for the role that he had played in the most tumultuous and terrifying moments of Anakin Skywalker’s life. And hers, for that matter. There must be something else going on. Some secret hand that she was playing, but she had remained tight-lipped about any such notion. 

Ben didn’t know how long he sat there, dwelling on how little he would be worth to his family after he messed this up, only that the light outside the windows had darkened around him, and he hadn’t the energy to get up and turn on a light. 

A knock at the door startled him. 

“What is it?” he said, still slumped over in his seat, and the door to the study swung open to reveal his grandmother. Ben stood up immediately, his sore joints and muscles creaking a little after having been stuck in one position for so long. “My apologies, I thought you had gone to bed.”

“I was just about to head off,” she said, clearly having changed into a more comfortable outfit. She now donned a long-sleeved nightgown, her hair unwound from the elaborate braids she’d had it in for the meeting. In her hands she held something small and cylindrical, wrapped in a heavy maroon cloth. 

“I wanted to check in on you. Today was difficult.”

Ben cleared his throat, which was groggy from disuse. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he said with a shrug and then gestured at the bundle in her hands. “What’s this?”

She held the object out to him and he took it into his hands, surprised by the weight of it. With a quick glance to his grandmother to confirm it was alright for him to open it, he untied the leather strings that kept the wraps on, and let the cloth fall open. 

It was Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. 

“I want you to have this, Ben. To bring with you to Varykino,” said Padmé. Ben was momentarily too stunned to speak. This lightsaber had sat over the mantle of his grandparent’s private drawing room fireplace for the past fifty years, serving as a reminder of Anakin’s former life as a Jedi, and everything that could have been. The symbolic laying down of arms, and taking up of duty and responsibility to family instead. 

Even when his Uncle Luke had helped Ben get his force powers under control as a boy, and gave him enough instruction to be able to wield a lightsaber without hurting himself if — god forbid — there was ever a need for it, he had never touched this saber before. 

“Why?” he asked quietly. “Why now? Do you think I’ll need to use this?”

Padmé dropped her shoulders in a forlorn sigh. 

“The last time this weapon was raised, it was raised against a Palpatine. I sincerely hope you won’t have to do so again, but just in case,” she said. “He would have wanted to have it. To defend yourself, only.”

Ben nodded in cursory agreement, but the thought of having to use it, even defensively, was too much. He couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. 

“I just don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. All signs point to the conclusion that this is not going to work out, and I don’t understand why you would take such a risk with this plan knowing the likelihood of failure,” said Ben. Then, something clicked. “Unless… you want me to fail?”

Her face betrayed no more of her plan than she had revealed to him in words. 

“I think everything will turn out as it’s meant to be,” Padmé said cryptically, approaching his desk. 

“But what do you want me to do? Am I supposed to try to win her heart, or push her away?” 

“I want you to be yourself, Ben,” she said in a way that only grandmother’s seem to be able to say. Genuinely, and with all the certainty that a lifetime of wisdom brings. “Just be you, and everything will fall into place.”

Exhausted at the prospect of having to riddle through whatever that meant for the next two days, and not wanting to start a fight about it so late at night, Ben simply nodded. 

“We should both turn in,” he said, folding the cloth over the saber and tying it back together with the leather cords. “I’m just going to clean up some paperwork here first.”

“Goodnight, Ben,” his grandmother said, and with a final smile she departed the study, her flowy pink nightgown trailing behind her. Despite her fair looks and charmed personality, Ben knew his grandmother hadn’t gotten this far in life without being as shrewd and cunning as galactic politics had demanded her to be. Whatever she had in store for him, Ben had a sinking suspicion that she would get her way. He wondered momentarily if Rey was at home thinking the same thing about her own grandfather, and felt a wave of gratitude rush over him at the knowledge that at the very least, his family wasn't acting entirely on self-interest. His fiancé could not say the same. Perhaps he would agree to the marriage, just to get Rey out from under her grandfather's thumb. No one deserved such a life, even his political arch-nemesis. 

Ben shook himself from the thoughts. If he was going to get through this without too much damage, he couldn't afford to dwell on more than a cursory care towards Rey. It would be better for both of them to get through this week and then never speak of such events ever again. 

A yawn tore through him, reminding him of the late hour and his assurance that he would be heading off to bed soon. Ben tucked the saber into the large inside pocket of his cloak, and plucked his personal Reader off his desk in case sleep precluded him that night and he needed some holovids to distract him, and shuffled off to bed. 

_Two days_ , he thought as he left the study and locked the door behind him, _was going to fly by_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Varykino](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Varykino)  
> [Holovid](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Holovid)  
> [Holonet](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/HoloNet_News)  
> I have 100% invented any and all Naboo traditions mentioned here in order to fit my fanfiction agenda lol. Sue me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Goodnight, Rey."
> 
> She turned back to find him still standing where he had left him, bag in hand, and tall frame silhouetted against the faint lights that were beginning to come on at the notice of their arrival. There was something soft in his stance, in the way he regarded her from afar. As if he was seeing her a new light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this update is a little earlier than I planned, but I just got so excited about this chapter I couldn't hold it back any longer. Thank you to everyone who's reached out recently and said how much they've been enjoying this so far. I am also having a ton of fun writing it, and can't wait to hear your thoughts!
> 
> Hope you enjoy, come hang out with me on [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com/empirestriksben) and I also just got this new "Discord" thing today, so if you'd like to add me as a friend there my username is: empirestrikesben#4059

Rey looked up at the halls of Varykino and wondered if she would ever set her eyes upon a more beautiful sight for as long as she lived. 

Set back into the ancient mountains of the Lake Country, Varykino perched on the edge of where clear blue water met dark green forest. The golden stone walls and mint-coloured domed roofs painted a picturesque vision of a luxurious family retreat. Nova lilies, blueblossoms, and Ithorian roses spilled over the balcony railings entwined with vines that stretched out towards the lake. The waterfalls that cascaded down the sides of the cliff, which she had spotted as her shuttle descended, could be heard bubbling in the distance amongst the sound of lively animals and a gentle, warm breeze rustling through trees. If it’s ivy-wrapped walls and stained glass windows could tell stories, she knew they’d speak of calm nights and cheerful days, of peaceful solitude and forbidden love.

It truly was a shame that she had to spend her week here with the most insufferable person she’d ever met. 

They should have arrived together, as was the arranged plan. In which case she would’ve had to pretend to not look up in wonder at the magnificent home they would be staying in for the next while. Though after a several hours long shuttle flight with Ben Solo as her only companion, she may have been in too dour a mood to properly appreciate the home for its beauty. 

Rey was almost glad her grandfather had insisted on separate arrivals after he heard what ship the Skywalkers had proposed to fly them over in. 

“That rusted death trap could barely be considered sky-worthy,” her grandfather had said, speaking derisively of Han Solo’s infamous _Millenium Falcon_. Rey was a little disappointed though. Back when she was Queen, the Senator had often taken the ship to the Theed Royal Palace for their regular briefings. There was something about it’s unique and vintage character that made it seem like an exciting method of travel. Though she could probably do without all the smoke that seemed to constantly be emitting from it. 

One of the only bright spots in her otherwise grim childhood were of tinkering with old droids and speeders when her grandfather was away or simply uninterested as to her whereabouts. She often wondered if she could only get her hands on the old ship, would she be able to get it flying smoothly again. 

As if called by her very thoughts of it, a roaring sound descended upon her from the skies above, and she squinted upwards to see the Corellian YT-1300f light freighter make its vertical descent to the space on the landing pad beside her own Naboo standard shuttle. 

The landing gear clunked and banged as it lowered from the underbelly of the ship, and it finally came to a groaning halt in the hanger. A characteristic haze of smoke floated around the top of the ship. Moments later, the entry ramp descended, and Ben Solo sauntered down it, coming to rest at the foot of the steps leading up to Varykino a few feet away from where Rey herself stood. 

It was the most casually dressed Rey had ever seen him. A loose blue tunic belted over a plain black long-sleeved shirt, and matching dark pants. His familiar black leather boots finished off the look, but there were no fine embroidered jackets or jewel-toned silk robes that she had come to associate with his style at the Senate. His hair wasn’t pulled back into the princely manicured look he always seemed to prefer, but fell in loose waves around his head. He looked almost comfortable. 

Almost. The dour, pinched expression on his face threw off the effortless style he was going for, but it’s not like she could blame him. A similar expression was likely mirrored on her own face, although at least she had dressed to match it. Her black pantsuit with delicate gold trimmings gave off the impression that she was in attendance at a funeral, rather than a week-long getaway. Not that she had picked her wardrobe this morning, nor packed any of her bags for the trip. 

That honour had fallen to one of her old handmaidens, who had been rehired temporarily using the engagement fund the Skywalker’s had offered upon the signing of the agreement. The packed bags were now being carried down the ramp of her shuttle by the other product of the engagement allowance — her new protocol droid TC-580. 

She wasn’t entirely alone then, Rey reminded herself. The droid was here to save her from the torture of spending an entire week with Ben Solo. That is, if she decided boredom was preferable to torture. 

Evidently, the Senator had made the same call, as the Skywalker family protocol droid, the impertinent one with the off-coloured leg, stumbled out of the _Millenium Falcon_ hauling one large bag. 

“Master Solo, do wait for me, please!” the droid’s anxious voice called out. 

“It’s fine, Threepio,” said Ben Solo, “just drop the bag here, I’ve got it.” 

“But Mistress Leia said —”

“Threepio just… go make yourself useful somewhere else,” said the Senator with a long-suffering sigh. Finally, he turned his attention to her, and grabbing the bag off of Threepio, made his way over to where she stood at the base of her shuttle. 

“Good evening, R—”

His polite greeting was cut off by the sounds of the engine of her shuttle craft roaring to life, the ramp furling back into the body of the ship. They stepped away from the shuttle as it ascended back into the sky and took off into the setting sun. The hired pilot must have assumed she was good to go from here. Rey noticed the _Millenium Falcon_ remained unmoved, a faint hissing still emanating from the open door. 

“Are you going to tell your pilot to depart as well?” asked Rey. 

The Senator’s lips curved into a small smile. 

“Trying to get rid of me so soon?” he said. Rey realized her mistake instantly. 

“Ah. You flew here yourself then,” she said. How she longed to be allowed to fly a ship all on her own. The one time she had almost made it out on one of the palace’s small speeders, one of the servants caught her and dragged her back to her grandfather kicking and screaming. After that he always made sure she was accompanied when traveling, and she hadn’t sat in the pilot’s seat of an aircraft since. 

“Yes…” said Ben Solo, a frown pinching between his eyebrows again, “I had thought that message had been relayed to your house? We were told that’s why you refused to travel together.”

If it was true, that message hadn’t been passed down to her. Her grandfather seemed to have made that call himself. 

Rey made sure to not let the surprise and hurt of such news show on her face, recovering quickly to say, “right, of course. Naturally I wouldn’t put my life in your hands, particularly in such an old and unreliable ship.”

“Suit yourself,” the Senator shrugged. With one last glance at the smoking ship, he hauled his bag forwards and began to climb the stairs. Rey followed shortly after, with TC-580 coming up the rear. C-3PO decidedly had taken his master’s advice, and wandered off to some corner of the property. 

When they arrived at the top of the steps, Rey was far too tired to make any effort in hiding her fascination and delight of the magnificent building in front of her, even though she knew it would invite his interest. 

“Varykino has been in my home for a few generations now,” said Senator Solo. “Originally, it was a sanctuary where humans and Gungans lived in harmony together. After that, it was owned by the infamous poet, Omar Berenko. He wrote _Defense of Naboo_ , a radical poem which scandalized many at Court. One night, he was sitting on the South balcony right over there, just looking up at the stars, and two assailants kidnapped him. He was never seen again.”

Rey groaned inwardly. How it had only taken two years for her to forget the Senator's penchant for historical trivia, she did not know. 

"Anyways," he trailed off as they entered through the main doors, realizing he had an inattentive audience. Rey felt a little bad, but was also too exhausted to care. The halls were dark and no servants greeted them. Save for the droids they brought with them, they really were alone here. "Do you need any assistance with your bags?"

"No," said Rey quickly, tightening her grip on the small bag in her hand. TC-580 could handle it, and besides, she didn't want the Senator getting anywhere near her bags, not with what her grandfather had given her before she departed. 

Sheev Palpatine's old lightsaber was buried in the bottom of her hand bag. 

"Use it wisely," was all he said before placing it in her bag. She had packed some books and a nightgown on top of it, and forbidden her handmaiden or TC-580 from touching the bag. She didn’t even know if the Senator was aware of her grandfather’s past, though she had always suspected his grandmother had passed along the Skywalker version of the story. 

"No thank you," she recovered swiftly after her curt reply. "My droid can help me. Do you know which room is mine?"

In a house this large, at least they wouldn't be expected to share a room together. 

"Yes, my grandmother said the entire East wing is yours. There's a sitting room, private kitchen, and en suite bathroom off the master bedroom. The only thing we'll share is that both our rooms open up to the same balcony. If that's alright?" he said, once again catching her off guard with his unusual level of deference. 

"I think I can tolerate that," said Rey, ignoring his attempts at niceties. Incredulously, it seemed to bring a lightness to his eyes. 

"Good. Well, you're off in that direction then," he said, pointing off to his right, "and if you need anything I'm on this side," he pointed to the mirrored hall heading off to the left. 

"Right well, I'll see you in the morning then," sad Rey. 

She headed off towards her end of the palace, and was several feet away already when he called to her. 

"Goodnight, Rey."

She turned back to find him still standing where he had left him, bag in hand, and tall frame silhouetted against the faint lights that were beginning to come on at the notice of their arrival. There was something soft in his stance, in the way he regarded her from afar. As if he was seeing her a new light. Rey had listened closely to her grandfather's tutelage though. That kind of softness that spelled danger. It was to be run from, not leaned into.

"Goodnight, Senator," she said curtly. This time, she waited until he turned away from her and disappeared quietly down the dark hall to his quarters. She exhaled slowly once he had gone, grateful that their interactions tonight had been brief and polite. Tomorrow would certainly bring strife, but tonight she could rest easy. 

Rey found the bedroom with only minor difficulty. First she had accidentally stumbled into the drawing room and was left momentarily distracted by reading the inscriptions on the holonovels that towered to the twelve-foot ceilings in dark wood shelves. If the Senator’s company was not enough to please her this week, the reading materials at least would be. 

Through a door off the drawing room was the master bedroom. It too stunned her with intricate ornate beauty, lit with low-lights that complemented the setting sun, the warm-toned drapes and muted rugs contrasted against the dark wood four-poster bed and accent pieces, enveloping the room with an elegant softness. 

Rey could easily see why the Skywalkers, and apparently many before them, had for generations retreated to this place for comfort and peace. It’s quiet atmosphere was already starting to relax her. It seemed a place where one could feel safe, warm, and even loved. 

She shook such notions from her head, and beckoned TC-580 over to the tall wood dresser. 

“Please, leave my things here. I’ll unpack them tonight myself,” she said, and dismissed the droid back to the drawing room. She’d call on it again if needed. 

After tucking the handbag with the hidden saber under the bed for safe keeping, Rey knelt to the ground beside the first of her three overnight bags, and unzipped it. 

It fell open to a sea of pastel-toned silk and lace. 

Rey’s jaw dropped in shock. The bag was filled to the brim with nothing except what seemed to be various items of lingerie. She dug to the bottom of the case in search of something, literally anything else, but it was the same all the way down. Frantic, she ripped open the next bag. 

This one was slightly better, a few pajama sets, but still far too revealing for her tastes. The third bag she only peeked in before slamming the lid of it shut, as it seemed to contain a horrifying array of _items_ of which she had never nor ever would entertain the thought of using with Senator Ben Solo. 

Rey let out a scream of frustration. TC-580 knocked on the door, but Rey ignored it. An entire week alone with Ben Solo in the Skywalker’s private residence was enough, but the humiliation of _this_ was too much to bear. 

Is this what was to be expected of her all week? What her handmaiden expected, and grandfather and obviously instructed. To be pranced around in lacy outfits, seducing powerful men into her web of influence, and then what? Was she to be wed to Senator Solo forever, or was he simply the first in a long line of prospective husbands her grandfather would line up for her in order to maintain their family’s wealth and power?

Well she wouldn’t do it. She would wear the black pantsuit she had arrived in for the entire week rather than don one of these frilly monstrosities. 

She plucked a pair of the least revealing pajamas from the second bag — small silk shorts and a matching thin-strapped top. At least in the privacy of her own quarters she wouldn’t force herself to sleep in her day clothes. Besides, the fabric felt soft against her tired skin, and even though the outfit was skimpy, the palace had been kept at a comfortable temperature so she was not too cold. 

Rey dropped the black pantsuit in a heap on the floor. She would likely regret it in the morning, but exhaustion had erased any cares towards the matter. She pulled the pins out of her hair, relieving some of the tension in her forehead. The fresher she would find in the morning, all she cared about in the moment was getting to bed, and trying her best to set a routine of sleeping through most of this trip. 

Rey climbed up onto the four-poster bed and tugged the heavy curtains around her, blanketing her vision in darkness. The bed-covers were warm and heavy on top of her, and the pillows gently supported her aching head. She hadn’t slept in such luxury in two years, when they had left the Theed Royal Palace after Queen Meridia’s coronation. Even those rooms, which always seemed to favour awe over comfort, had not felt this nice to crawl into at night. 

Even though it was far earlier than she usually went to sleep, with the darkness of the bed, softness of the pajamas and the weight of the layers of blankets on top of her, Rey fell asleep almost instantaneously. 

* * *

Ben sat on the balcony, sipping a mug of Tarine tea, and willing the sun to sooth his tired muscles and cure his headache. 

After about four hours of a fitful, nightmare-filled sleep, he’d given up for the night and had come out to the balcony to read and watch the sun rise. It was one of the things he loved most to do whenever he was at Varykino. The stunning views were unlike anything else he’d ever seen — not that he had seen too many other places, at least not in a long time. 

Senate business had kept him too busy the past six years to see much outside the hyperlane between Naboo and Coruscant. Before that, Bayonard Institute had kept him occupied enough with school work, but at least being so near the Corellian Run he managed to escape on a few adventures when Han was nearby and his mother none the wiser. It hadn’t been like his early childhood though, when the prospect of getting to see a new planet every week was almost guaranteed. He’d been in more close-shaves with bounty hunters and smugglers at four years old than most of his colleagues had seen in their lifetime. 

Now though, it was all committees and speeches and debating legislation on trade routes in the Outer rim. In other words, dull. For a while now he had wished for some kind of injection of excitement into his life. 

_Be careful what you wish for_ , said a small voice in his head. He huffed a laugh, and took another sip of his tea. 

No sooner had he set his mug back down onto the small table did _excitement_ itself trounce onto the balcony from her wing of the estate wearing nothing but pink floral-patterned silk shorts and a matching top that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. 

Ben’s heart thudded in his chest as his eyes dragged from her long tanned legs all the way up to her bouncy medium-length hair hanging in soft waves just above her shoulders. He’d never seen it undone before. 

“Uhh…” he searched desperately for something to say that didn’t involve her appearance, and of course, failed miserably. “Am I overdressed for breakfast?”

Rey rolled her eyes and dropped into the other chair beside him, plucking a ripe pear from the bowl of fruit in the middle of the table. 

“According to the handmaiden who packed my luggage, yes, apparently you are,” she said, the derision in her voice unmistakable. 

“Ah,” said Ben, grateful that he had packed his own bags. Then again, he would have expected nothing else from the Palpatines. “I take it she didn’t picture a holiday full of rock-climbing and sight-seeing when planning what to bring?”

“Nope,” said Rey, biting into the pear. “This outfit was made for one thing and one thing only. To not be worn for a very long time.”

She said the last part with a waggle of her eyebrows, and Ben tried desperately to ignore the swooping feeling in his heart that the action provoked. 

He knew logically that _that_ was what people expected them to do here. His father, her grandfather, and evidently, her handmaiden. But to hear Rey throw it out there so casually felt different. Especially while still wearing the offending item which had brought on the conversation. 

“Surely they packed you something else to wear?” said Ben, hoping these were merely the scantily sleep clothes in an otherwise appropriate wardrobe. 

“This was the least revealing thing I could find. That, or my now-crumpled outfit from yesterday, which I am not looking forward to wearing for an entire week,” said Rey looking dismal at such a prospect. 

This would simply not do. 

“Well,” said Ben, a plan forming mid-sentence, “I might be able to help.” 

He stood from the chair and retreated back into his bedroom, answering in the affirmative when Rey called from behind him “can I have the rest of your omelet?”

Ben returned to his room and hoisted his suitcase up on the bed for ease of access. Years ago, had he arrived in such a predicament, he would’ve been able to offer Rey some of his grandmother’s clothes which she often kept here in case of impromptu trips. However, although she was spry for her age, she hadn’t left the family home in Theed for many years now where he and his mother were able to easily care for her if something arose, and so none of her fine dresses had remained in Varykino. 

There was only one other course of action he could see. 

Ben grabbed a couple items out of the top of his suitcase. A few comfortable tops, a pair of loose pants that she would be able to belt to fit her waist, and a light jacket. He collected the bundle into his arms and went back out onto the balcony. 

Rey had polished off the omelet, and was already chowing down on the end of his toast when he arrived with the clothes, depositing them gently onto her lap. 

“Here, you can have these while we’re here,” said Ben, “you’ve got to be tall enough to fit into some of it.”

Rey set the toast down and took the bundle of clothes into her hands, a mesmerized look taking over her face. He felt a little hot under the collar as her eyes suddenly dragged up and down his body. 

“I don’t know, you’re freakishly tall,” she jested. Then she asked, in a quieter tone, with a hint of confusion in her voice, “are you sure?” 

“Yeah,” he said, trying not to make too much of it. “How else are we going to go rock-climbing and sight-seeing?”

A small smile brightened her face at that, and she stood up, bundle of clothes in hand, to face him. 

“Alright, be back in a moment then,” said Rey, and she turned heel to walk back to her room. “Oh, and could you ask your droid to put on another omelet for me?”

Ben stared at her awaiting his answer expectantly in the doorway of her bedroom. 

“Will do,” he said, glossing over the fact that Threepio couldn’t make an omelet if his life depended on it. He feared that if she knew he’d made it though, she might feel bad about asking for another. With that, she disappeared into her room. 

Ben returned quickly to the kitchen in his suite. He’d left the ingredients not too far out of reach — the droids that attended to the place when no one was visiting had at least stocked the cupboards relatively full before leaving, so finding supplies for an extra breakfast was no issue. He’d assumed Rey’s droid would have made her something to eat from the pantry in her wing of the home, but perhaps not. 

It took very little time for him to throw the same ingredients he’d put in his omelet into the frying pool of Gartro eggs until it was just the right consistency, and flipped it onto a new plate. 

Ben carried it back out to the balcony and tripped over his own feet, nearly dropping the freshly cooked omelet, at the sight of Rey back in the chair, lounging in the pink morning sun, dressed head to toe in his clothes. 

Why did he think this would be _better_? 

As if seeing her in this state of dress wasn’t it’s own brand of alluring. His eyes darted from her collar bones peeking out the top of his loose navy sweater, which fell to her mid-thigh, to the trousers she had adorably folded up to just past her ankles, exposing her bare feet. The over-sized clothes gave her the overall appearance of dainty petiteness, something he didn’t usually associate with her. 

The entire picture pulled together such an image that he had never thought possible. It was as though he could imagine that she really was his fiance. That she was wearing his clothes, in their home, enjoying breakfast together after a night of… everything that everyone was expecting of them. 

The most troubling part of all of it though, was the realization that he didn’t hate the impression the image left him with. Not even a little. 

Force, this was going to be a long, long week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars References:
> 
> [Omar Berenko](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Omar_Berenko)
> 
> [Defense of Naboo](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Defense_of_Naboo)
> 
> [Bayonard Institute of Higher Education](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bayonard_Institute_of_Higher_Education)
> 
> [Nova lily](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nova_lily)
> 
> [Blueblossom](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Blueblossom)
> 
> [Ithorian rose](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ithorian_rose)
> 
> [Gartro egg omelet](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gartro_egg_omelet)
> 
> [TC-series protocol droid](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/TC-series_protocol_droid)
> 
> [Tarine Tea](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tarine_tea)
> 
> Fun fact, the scene where Rey wears his clothes is in part inspired by my third date with my now-husband, where we got caught in the rain coming back from lunch to his place, and I had to wear his clothes for the rest of the date while we watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. True story.
> 
> Let me know: what do you think Rey and Ben will get up to on their first day alone together? 👀


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then, from behind her, Ben Solo's arm stretched up and plucked the fruit at the stem, the branch swaying a little as it adjusted after the disruption. Rey turned into him, her eyes tracing from the ripe fruit in his hand, all the way up to his long, pale face, his pink lips parted and eyebrow raised in an unspoken question. The pear, he held out in offering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I call this chapter "pears no plot". There's also a weird amount of lingerie, which I know will only exponentially increase. 
> 
> Also I realized I have been using the word "Court" a lot without explanation, which is unfair to those who aren't history nerds: I use it to refer generally to the cluster of powerful people/families that exist in and around a government, in this case, the Naboo monarchy/government. 
> 
> Once again, excuse the half British half American spelling... that's the Canadian life. 
> 
> Some content warnings for this chapter: Alcohol use, someone comments on a character who is a minor having a crush on a character who is an adult, but those feelings are not returned and there is no relationship between them. 
> 
> Let me know if you have any more questions, and as always come hang out with me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/empirestriksben) \-- Enjoy!

“So, did you mean that, about the walks and the hiking?” asked Rey, finishing off the last of the omelet the Senator’s droid had whipped up. 

The ‘fresher this morning had relaxed her somewhat, giving her enough strength to be able to strut out onto the balcony wearing only the skimpy pajamas from the night before, although the Senator had remedied that predicament with surprising swiftness. She couldn’t deny that although it felt weird to be wearing his clothes, they were quite comfortable and very soft to the touch. Then again, Rey supposed that anything would be preferable to the outfits her handmaiden had selected for her. 

“That was my plan for the day,” said the Senator, finally finishing off his mug of tea, which Rey had suspected was Tarine owning to the pungent stench of it. How could he drink that stuff? She associated it more with the stuffy and formal dinner parties her grandfather used to throw, not something one willingly enjoyed on holiday. 

Rey realized she let the silence hang between them for too long, as the Senator followed up with, “you could join me? If you want to, that is.”

She hadn’t intended to imply such a thing, but in all honesty, she also didn’t know what to say. 

“Well, what is there to do around here?” Rey asked. The Senator shrugged. 

“Not much really, that’s why it’s so appealing here,” he said with a small smile. “The Room of Morning Mists is all yours if you’d like, though I’d like to work on some writing in there at some point this week. There’s some art work in the gallery on the East end of the property — you might find a couple portraits you’d recognize. And yes, the walks around the lake are exquisite, if I do say so.” 

Rey thought on his offer for a moment. They couldn’t avoid each other the entire trip, and since they already had breakfast together that morning, she may as well get the forced interactions out of the way early on.

“I’ll join you on the walk, if that’s alright,” she said. “That way if I want to go again on my own later, I won’t get lost.”

The Senator nodded in affirmation, but there was something else in his expression, which she couldn’t quite read. Disappointment, maybe, but it looked a little more like nervousness. 

They headed out shortly after that. Rey grabbed her shoes and threw on the jacket that the Senator had loaned her. She pocketed a few more pears for the journey, in case she got hungry. 

“Do they grow nearby?” she asked as the Senator spotted the last one dropping into her pocket. He had donned a black open-front tunic on top of his crimson shirt, and carried a flask for water in hand. 

“Yes, would you like to see the orchard first, perhaps?” he asked. It sounded pleasant enough, especially if it allowed her to get a hold of more of the pears. Before leaving she grabbed a canvas bag from her kitchen to carry some back home in. 

It was a short walk to the northeast from the estate, just over the crest of the first sloping hill leading up the mountain. The sun had risen almost to it's peak by the time they arrived. There were about a dozen trees in the clearing, just enough to call an orchard. 

Rey realized she had never actually seen a pear tree before. They stretched both tall and wide, filling her vision with spindly branches, hung low with heavy fruit and small white blossoms. Most of the fruit was well within her reach, and she picked generously, although not excessively. 

One particular ripe, perfect looking fruit was on a branch just out of her reach, and even stretching up on her toes, her fingers clasped around thin air instead of the plump fruit. Rey set her heels back down to the ground, her hand flopping disappointingly to her side. 

Then, from behind her, Ben Solo's arm stretched up and plucked the fruit at the stem, the branch swaying a little as it adjusted after the disruption. Rey turned into him, her eyes tracing from the ripe fruit in his hand, all the way up to his long, pale face, his pink lips parted and eyebrow raised in an unspoken question. The pear, he held out in offering.

She shook her head a fraction, inhaling deeply the woody pine scent that clung to him. It lingered on the clothes he’d given her as well, and she would never admit to the soothing feeling of tranquility that had enveloped her when she first put them on.

"You have it," she said, her breath catching in her throat a little. They had never been in such proximity to one another. "Besides, you picked it."

He shrugged, cocked one eyebrow, and took a bite out of the pear without a further word to it.

"Suit yourself," he said, munching on the fruit, and stepped out of her space. Despite the warm sun on her face, a sudden slight chill went through her. 

Their walk continued east, curving along the side of the sizeable lake. Rey spotted a number of large creatures bobbing in and out of the rolling surface of the pearlescent waters. She saw a couple other estates on the far side of the lake, but they were few and far between. It was unquestionably a stunning site, but the tenor of the place was tinged with something unfamiliar.

Varykino exuded light and goodness, as though every exhale of the wind through the trees and splash of creatures in the lake was steeped in pure, righteous energy. It was unlike anywhere else she had lived, and in a way, it frightened her. 

The dark was what she knew. Her grandfather’s all-consuming power was a black hole at the centre of her life. It drew everything towards it, swallowing her childhood pleasures and hopes into its infinite maw. It had been a tough lesson to learn, but she had been trained well to know that it was where she gained her power from too. The darkness was the only way to achieve one’s full potential and might. 

It’s why the tendrils of good that reached out from every corner of this place, already pushing their way into her heart after such a short time, frightened her so terribly. 

The energy signature singing off her companion on the walk was the most frightening part of all. Even in the cut-throat world of the Galactic Senate, Ben Solo’s force signature had always been bright, even her relatively untrained force sensitivities could pick up that much. Here, amplified by the purity of Varykino, which was seeped in familial warmth and love — it was blinding. 

Rey feared what four more days of this would bring. The danger that came with every one of his soft looks and kind actions made her stomach clench with anxious fear. She felt herself already putting up shields to defend herself from it. 

“Will you be keeping up with Senate proceedings while we’re here?” she asked. Work was a safe topic. Reminding him of their long-time feelings of antagonism and rivalry in the political sphere would be the durasteel plating of her armour against the threat of this lightness. “I understand there’s a mid-Rim committee on Centaxday.”

“Y-yes,” said the Senator, clearly taken back that she had kept up with the minutiae of galactic politics. “I will not be attending remotely via hologram, though. I asked someone to attend in my stead.” 

“Who?” asked Rey, readjusting the bag of pears to sit higher up on her shoulder. 

“Queen Meridia,” said the Senator with a tight smile. Rey barely contained a snort at that. “What was that for?” he asked. 

“Nothing,” said Rey with a shrug, decidedly dragging out every inch of smugness she could muster, “I simply presume that the young Queen must have been all too eager to please you Senator, given that she agreed to such a request despite the committee meeting falling on her seventeenth life-day.”

Ben Solo jolted to a halt, as if suddenly remembering he had a very important appointment he had forgotten about. Rey took a few paces forward, but then slowed and turned to face him. His cheeks had pinkened in a way that had nothing to do with the sun’s heat, and his mouth was parted ever so slightly in shock. 

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” he said. 

“Which part?” Rey taunted, “The fact that you forgot our Queen’s life-day and asked her to sit in on one of the most dull Senate committees, or the fact that our Queen very obviously has set her designs on you?”

“Either? Both?” said Ben Solo, dragging a hand through his hair as he stared out into the glassy waters. “What would possibly make you think she’s interested in me in that way?”

Rey rolled her eyes at that. How men could be so obtuse sometimes. 

“These things make their way around Court, even when one is not often at it’s attendance anymore. Besides, it’s not difficult to see, Senator. I remember the way she looked at you on the night of her coronation, when you presented her with the gift on behalf of your family.”

At the mention of Queen Meridia’s coronation, his eyes flicked back towards hers, as if daring her to mention their conversation in the Royal Palace afterwards. She resolutely did not. 

“Queen Meridia and I have a strictly professional relationship, she is far too young for me and I have no interest in anything of the sort —”

“I wasn’t suggesting her feelings were returned, Senator,” Rey said, interrupting his protestations. “Only that it’s obvious to everyone around her that the young Queen is harbouring a fanciful crush on you. Did you… tell her why you couldn’t attend the committee?”

Senator Solo’s Adam's apple bobbed in a nervous gulp. 

“Yes.”

“And she was…?”

“Surprised,” said the Senator. “But only because she knows of the extreme distaste our families have of each other.”

Rey raised an eyebrow at him. “Surprised, or _heartbroken_?” she teased, but Senator Solo shook his head. 

“Cut it out, you’re reading into it too much,” he said, and resumed his pace towards her. 

For one moment, he stepped into her space again, like he had in the orchard, and whispered low under his breath, as though he didn’t want even the creatures in the lake or the birds in the trees to over hear him, “besides, why do you care anyways?”

Rey’s heart skipped a beat as his warm brown eyes followed her as he passed by, her skin burning with a foreign heat. Why had she worn all these stupid layers? Of _his_ clothes, no less. This entire walk had been a terrible idea. 

Shame overtook her, and suddenly being in the same vicinity as him, when he had seen through her as though was as transparent as the shallows of the lake beside them, was unbearable. 

“I think I’m going to head back,” said Rey, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “I know the way, don’t feel like you have to walk with me.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his eyebrows pinched slightly into a concerned frown, but the smugness hadn’t left his face entirely. 

“Of course,” she replied. “I can handle myself.”

* * *

Ben stayed out for probably longer than he should have. The trail around the lake was one of his favourite places in the galaxy, and after all the pent up stress and frustration of this morning, he needed to burn off some energy. 

Rey vexed him. 

He thought surely he would be able to handle her, it was Rey Palpatine after all. He’d learned everything he needed to know about her the first time she challenged him publicly in the Senate about whether Naboo would be participating in the upcoming inter-Galactic conference on historic architecture preservation. Yet a mere half a day in her private company had turned him into a fumbling, nervous fool. 

Four and a half more days of this would surely bring his ruin. 

By the time he arrived back at the house it was almost evening, and he was famished. Rey had taken all the pears with her when she left, and he’d had nothing for the trip back. 

Ben slipped back in the house through the side entrance, which he’d not yet shown Rey, and after a quick shower, headed straight to his kitchen. 

After a peek in the cupboards, he decided to whip up some Chou-shou and Kodari-rice, not a favourite of his, but quick enough to pull together on a hungry stomach. After only twenty minutes, the kitchen had filled with the smell of hot, frying Elbina pepper spices and saltnut butter. Ben plated the meal, and went out to the same balcony table he’d had his breakfast at that morning. 

He’d barely taken a bite of the food before Rey’s door at the other end of the balcony banged open, and his housemate, still clad in the clothes he’d loaned her, walked up to his table, holding a large chunk of what appeared to be —

“Ration-pack bread?” he asked, as she sank down into the seat beside him. “Is that all you’re having for dinner?”

“Yeah,” Rey shrugged, taking an enormous bite out of the grey-tinged lumpy bread. 

Ben tried to ignore her at first, and he thought it unlikely that she wanted to talk to him either after what had transpired on their walk, but she finished her bread so quickly it soon became an awkward, stifling silence. 

“Are you really not going to have anything else?” he asked around another bite of the fried meat. If his mother were here, she would be scolding him for such improper manners. Rey shrugged again, and clasped her hands over her stomach. He noticed upon closer inspection that she’d changed into one of his sleep shirts, but wore the same rolled-up pants from earlier. “Couldn’t you ask your droid to make you something?”

“I would, but I cannot seem to find the damn thing anywhere,” she said, shaking her head. “A useless waste of money that was.”

Ben hummed in response, picking up another helping of the rice onto his fork. 

“You can’t cook then?” he asked. It wasn’t surprising. Most children of noble families couldn’t, in fact he’d found from experience that he was the exception. He had his low-born father to thank for that. 

“I can cook,” Rey threw back at him. “Who do you think made that portion bread?”

Ben tried his best not to laugh. Ration-pack bread could hardly be considered at the best of times ‘food’ and it’s preparation certainly didn’t require it to be ‘cooked’. Still, what she said spoke volumes far more than she realized. He regarded her thin forearms and hollow cheeks and for the first time wondered if it was the purposeful skinniness that most young women preferred as a fashion choice, or something more sinister. Everyone at Court knew the Palapatines were struggling financially, but perhaps not how much. 

Despite their earlier fight, the thought put an ache in his heart that he knew there was only one way to rid himself of. Ben set his half-eaten plate down on the table in front of them. 

“Well, I’m probably not going to finish this,” he said, his stomach growling in protest. “Why don’t you have it?”

He supposed it was the least he could do for the role he played in the quarrel out on their walk. 

“Are you sure?” Rey said, eyeing the generous helping of food still left on the plate. 

“Yeah,” said Ben, standing from his chair. “I’ll have a snack later if I’m hungry.”

With that, he left her to her dinner. 

A strange kind of unfulfilled hollowness clawed at his heart upon returning to his room alone. He settled into the small writing desk that faced out the bay window to the west. He took some scraps of paper out of the tiny drawer on the table, and his fountain pen out of it’s setting. 

Writing always made him feel better, but the frustrations of the day clouded his head with such a thick fog that he couldn't even bring words to mind, let alone paper. He violently crumpled the lined sheet, throwing it to the floor. Ben grabbed another piece from the drawer, this one plain.

He felt some tension ease from his shoulders with the first touch of his pen against paper. With slow methodical strokes he inked whatever images came to the forefront of his mind. Strong, curved lines with light sketches bloomed across the page as the sun outside the window dropped down below the treeline, turning the paper a burnt rosy colour. Finally, he set the pen down and regarded his finished drawing. 

It was the pear tree from the orchard, the one Rey couldn't quite reach the branches of. 

A shudder ran through him at the memory. He had leaned so close to her, unconsciously in the moment, almost close enough to graze his hand along the side of her cheek. He remembered in vivid detail the way her brow had furrowed as she refused his offering of the pear. The same way he knew she would have refused the food had she known it was made by his hands. The same way she had refused him before, that night after Queen Meridia's coronation. The way she always would.

He had to let any notion of a genuine connection with her this week die. She was a Palpatine, and he was a Skywalker. Anything real between them was unthinkable. There was no more authenticity in her soft glances and vulnerabilities she let slip than in her grandfather's sinister smile. Ben was certain that any moment he thought of as private here would be relayed in full detail back to the infamous former Chancellor. 

Ben clicked the cap onto the fountain pen and set it back into it's fine gold setting. The picture, he left on the window ledge to dry. 

Ben stood from the desk chair and made his way over to the small bar stand that decorated the corner of his room. He grabbed a bottle of Vaschean rye from the shelf and poured himself a drink. He downed one glass of the amber whisky, and before the spiced liquid hit his stomach, he poured himself another. 

Ben paced the length of his room back and forth until the sun dipped below the horizon and most of his now third glass was empty. 

He remembered why he so rarely drank. Somehow, it managed to make him feel even more anxious. As though it was not just the liquor that lingered on his lips that burned, but his very skin. The collar of his shirt suddenly felt scratchy and constricting, and before thinking twice about it, he tore it over his head, and casted it carelessly to the floor. 

Rey, damn her, had taken all of his sleep shirts this morning. Frustration once again bubbled in his abdomen, thinking of her as she must look right now, her chestnut brown hair ruffled and sleepy, his loose soft shirt draped over her slender shoulders. He hadn’t given her any pajama bottoms to wear. Would she be wearing those same silk shorts as before, the ones she’d said were the least revealing of the bunch, or something else entirely?

“Kriff,” he hissed under his breath. The alcohol was clearly getting to him, and he regretted having a drink at all. His head felt sluggish and tired, his lungs craved fresh air. He needed to get away from this stifling room where he was alone with inappropriate thoughts. 

Ben set the glass down onto the bar stand, a sliver of amber liquid still sloshing around in it, and headed out for the balcony. The gust of nighttime air rustled through his hair, and he inhaled deeply at the smell of fresh flowers, and humid lake air. He leaned his arms on the balcony railing, his head pressing down onto the cool stone beam. 

Perhaps it would be best if he avoided Rey altogether tomorrow, if being in each other's company was truly going to only bring misery. 

Yes, he thought, that’s a good plan. A clear-headed plan. He patted himself on the back for coming up with such a sober thought in such a drunken state, though he owed most of it to the incredible power of fresh air. 

He was about to head inside for the night when suddenly his head turned towards the sound of the latch of the door at the other end of the balcony being opened. 

There was no time for him to duck back inside without her seeing him, as Rey walked out onto the balcony, and alerted by the sound of his sharp intake of breath, turned to find him standing in the moonlight, bare chested and drunk as a Cantonican.

“Uhm,” Ben stared back at her with wide eyes. Even from this far a distance he could tell they had both been caught in an extremely compromising position. Almost every inch of her long, tanned legs were on display, right up to the top of her thigh, where the end of her lace-trimmed silk nightgown hung. This one had some type of lace cutouts at the mid-section, and she’d topped it all off with a house coat that was so short and thin there was no way it served any functional purpose for either warmth or coverage. That was all he saw before the manners that had been drilled into him since he could walk forced him to avert his eyes. 

Ben faced burned with embarrassment, and he struggled to ignore the other parts of him that burned at the sight of his fiancé in such a state of undress. 

“I should head off to bed,” he said, his voice sounding more gravelly than he’d care to admit come morning, and did not not glance back at her as he slipped back into his suite. 

“Goodnight, Rey,” he called out to her from inside the doorway. 

He didn’t linger long enough to hear her quiet reply. 

“Goodnight, Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars references:
> 
> [Centaxday](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Standard_Calendar)  
> [Room of Morning Mists](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Room_of_Morning_Mists)  
> [Cantonica](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cantonica)  
> [Vaschean Rye](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Vaschean_rye)  
> [Kriff](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kriff)  
> [Saltnut butter](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Saltnut_butter)  
> [Elbina pepper](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Elbina_pepper)  
> [Chou-shou](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chou-shou)  
> [Kodari-rice](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kodari-rice)  
> [Ration packs](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ration_pack)
> 
> Drop a kudos or a comment if you liked it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She dropped to her knees and threw open one of the suitcases. 
> 
> The first touch of her hands to the ocean of silk and lace confirmed that this was exactly what she needed, and nothing else would suffice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this fic finally earns it's rating. Extremely sexually hilarious content awaits!
> 
> Also, I won't do this very often, but this chapter is kind of a recap of the afternoon of their first day but from Rey's perspective. I just felt like there were some moments I wanted to capture... you'll see why.
> 
> This chapter was supposed to be twice as long, but it got out of hand so I cut it in half, which means another 3000 words is ready and awaiting final edits! Should be a much shorter wait for the next chapter.
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter: masturbation, some feelings of shame about sex.

Rey held her head high as she arrived back at the estate, her pride wounded, but not beyond repair. 

The Senator was _kidding_ himself if he thought she cared where his affections lay. There was nothing real in this arrangement between them, only in what possible benefits lay in the secret corners of their families minds. Money, power, and notoriety chief among them, even if Rey wasn’t up to speed on the details. 

This engagement would last no further than one week, if she had anything to say about it, and as promised by both of their grandparents, she did. To that end, the Senator would be free to court whomever he wished, even a naive young girl like Queen Meridia, although Rey could see no possible attraction of such a woman. 

She tried to forget the entire encounter by losing herself in the plot of one of the holonovels from the drawing room library, while making her way through the collection of pears she had amassed on the walk. She tried to relax, but then came the incident at dinner. 

The Senator had scoffed at her ration packs, and ignoring her wishes, offered her his dinner instead. It would have been paternalistic regardless, but something about it particularly irked her.

Ration packs were a staple of her life for as long as she could remember. Only the four years she spent as Queen allowed her to forget the constant feeling of being on the precipice of hunger. The Senator may have derided them, but they were in many ways a comfort food for her. In such an unfamiliar setting, they were the one thing she could recognize to ground her to the reality she had to go back to after this week was up. 

Of course, Ben Solo had to go and ruin even that, with his patronizing kindness, offering her the rest of his unfinished dinner. He didn't even hang around to spend time in her company, he simply acted like she was a child that needed to be fed their dinner and then promptly ignored.

Rey was not a child. She could barely remember a time when she ever felt like one, and she would not stand being patronized as though she were one — most definitely not by Senator Solo. She was an adult, a _woman_ , and from now on, she wasn’t going to let him forget it. 

She wasn't going to forget it herself either. 

Frankly, this entire affair had thrown her head for a spin. What would her grandfather think of her right now? Feeling sorry for herself, letting a _Skywalker_ both taunt her and provide for her.

The entire thing was against her very nature, and more than that, against the purpose of this retreat. 

This was all supposed to be for _her_ pleasure.

Isn't that what her grandfather had said? What Padmé Amidala had agreed to? What her and Senator Solo signed off on. That he, like generations of aristocratic Naboo men before him, would try to please his intended wife, and only if he made the cut, would be granted the honour of marrying her. 

If only, Rey thought, clicking to the next page of her holonovel. 

A few moments passed before the rest of her brain caught up to her off-handed thought. 

_If only_?

Is that what she wanted out of this? For Ben Solo to _please_ her? Her heartbeat rose slightly and she tried to ignore such ideas. Yet still they crept into her mind, uninvited, but perhaps not entirely unwanted, if Rey was being fully honest with herself. 

Her choice of reading material wasn’t exactly helping the situation either. The holonovel she picked up had started as a relatively innocent action-adventure novel, but it was quickly morphing into something else. 

The main character of the novel, Kira, had been on a quest with her friends to find a lost artifact that would help her kingdom win the war against an invading force. Along the way, she kept encountering a demon, Kylo, trying to tempt her away from the quest. A couple chapters ago Kira found out that the artifact would in fact bring her ruin, and the wise old mage who had told her to go fetch it was secretly the leader of the insurrection. Kira was shocked, hurt, and this time when the demon came to her, she didn’t cast him away. 

_“Were you trying to protect me?” asked Kira, her face full of both hurt, and wonder._

_“Yes,” said Kylo, his eyes intense with longing, “I knew the harm it would bring you, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you."_

_“I thought you hated me, and my kingdom,” she replied._

_"It is quite the opposite, Kira. I am very much enamoured with you.”_

_Kira sucked in a breath. Her suspicions had been confirmed. Her feelings were not one-sided, but rather returned in full. With no more reason to hesitate, Kira leaned forward and kissed Kylo’s full, luscious lips._

Rey sucked in a breath. She had never before read such a romantic novel, though she had often heard the ladies at Court discuss them, her grandfather would have never approved. Rey flicked to the beginning of the book, reading over the summary again. Nothing about it suggested such content. 

Her eyes caught the corner of one of the digital pages she’d skipped over before. Clicking it open, she discovered a small note that someone had left at the beginning. It read:

> Dear Padmé,
> 
> I hope this makes it into your hands. This is the holonovel I mentioned to you on your last trip to Alderaan! I’ve sent it with Bail to give to you at the next Senate meeting on Coruscant. He says he will, but I will admit it garnered a raised eyebrow or two when he saw which book it was, so we will see. Don’t show it to Anakin (or maybe do? you never know!)
> 
> Say hello to the twins for me, how we and the girls miss them so. I know that Senate business has kept you busy, as governance duties have for me as well, but I hope to be in your company again soon. 
> 
> Your friend,
> 
> Breha

Not knowing who this Breha woman was, Rey could still surmise that she must have been a close friend of Padmé’s, and like her handmaidens and the other women at Court seemed to do, they had quietly traded these frivolous romance holos back and forth. 

Rey returned to where she had left off, anticipating that at least that would be the end of it, but to her continued shock, the book didn’t stop there. Kylo returned Kira’s kisses in earnest, and more. Soon, he had whisked her down to his demonic lair, and the two were laid out together on his enormous velvety bed. 

It was without a doubt the most scandalous thing Rey had ever read, and yet she could not take her eyes off the words for even a moment as Kylo unbuttoned Kira’s dress, pressing kisses down her body as he went. Rey curled tighter in on herself in the large, plush chair, feeling quite hot although a cool evening breeze was rolling in through her open window. Her clothes, although she had thought of them as soft and comfortable, had begun to feel too rough against her skin. She longed for more gentle, light fabric against her, and her mind unconsciously floated into the suitcases full of silk and lace that sat untouched in her room. 

Rey cleared her throat to the empty room, and shook her head slightly. She wouldn’t — couldn’t. They were completely inappropriate to wear. She went to turn off the holonovel and forget the whole thing, but her eyes betrayed her, glancing over the next few lines and sucking her in deeper. 

_Kylo’s fingers were so much softer than she could have imagined, though they burned as hot as a demon’s should wherever they grazed over her body. Soon, she was bare beneath him, his mouth claiming hers as his fingers delved into places no one had ever touched her before_. 

The novel was absolutely sordid, exactly the type of disreputable literature she swore she would stay far away from. Rey pulled at the collar of her shirt, which was far too tight around her neck. Her eyes flicked to the door to her bedroom, thinking again to the cases full of clothes made to fit, and built exactly for the type of comfort her body was craving. 

With a huff, Rey stood up, and barged into her room, tossing the holonovel onto her bed, and tearing off the over-sized clothing. She dropped to her knees and threw open one of the suitcases. 

The first touch of her hands to the ocean of silk and lace confirmed that this was exactly what she needed, and nothing else would suffice. She pulled one piece out at random, which happened to be a silky rose-gold nightgown, capped with a lace hem, and lace detailing around the middle. Rey didn’t think about it too much as she tossed it over her head and pulled it down around her body. 

She let out a small sigh at the feeling of the soft silk hugging what little curves she had, sliding over her sensitive skin in the most tantalizing way. She stood on shaky legs and made her way back to the large, soft bed, settling in against the layers of pillows piled up at the headboard, and picking the holonovel up from where she’d dropped it. Rey took another shaky breath, her chest pushing again the seams of the silk nightgown, and dived back into the novel. 

_“Do you want this?” Kylo asked his voice low and hoarse, his head in between her legs, eyes open in questioning._

_“Y-yes,” Kira nodded, and Kylo seemed to need no further prompting, as his tongue darted out to lick at the very core of her._

Rey let out a whimper, in tune with Kira’s, as the demon pleasured her in ways Rey could not even imagine before this. Rey pressed her thighs together as arousal coursed through her abdomen. She whimpered with every graze of silk against her skin. Her eyes widened as she read further. 

_Soon, Kylo’s fingers joined his mouth, pushing in and out of her with slow, tortuous strokes. Kira’s hips lifted off the bed to meet his thrusts, and the demon’s eyes widened in amazement at the incredible, beautiful human laid on beneath him._

_Kira wanted more, and she knew Kylo did too. She pushed his head away gently, his lips pink and wet as he pulled away from her._

_“Are you in pain?” he asked. Kira shook her head._

_“No. I want more, I want all of you,” she said, and the demon’s face lit up in awe. He nodded._

Rey’s teeth dug marks into her hand. Her body throbbed with want like never before, and she surprised even herself, as she reached a hand down in between her legs and gave ino the need. She stroked clumsily at first, from inexperience and lightheadedness, the soft pads of her fingers slipping over the wetness she found there, but she quickly found a rhythm that was more than acceptable. Inexplicably, she kept reading. 

_Kylo was above her again in an instant, his body covering hers, and lips nuzzling into her neck. Kira's legs wrapped instinctively around his waist, pulling him closer towards her, but it still wasn't close enough._

_Finally, once Kira simply couldn’t bear being separated from him for one moment longer, Kylo pushed inside her._

Rey’s head dropped back onto the pillows, as her own pleasure began to overwhelm her. Her eyes fluttered shut and her breath came out in hot, quick huffs as she increased up her pace. Daring herself to go further, Rey pushed one slender finger into her tight, wet cunt, her thumb keeping pressure on her clit. She almost abandoned the story, but somehow her curiosity even outweighed her arousal.

_Kira felt completely consumed by Kylo’s lips and hands, kissing and caressing her the hard length of him plunged inside her in increasingly powerful, desperate thrusts. She wasn’t going to last long —_

— nor was Rey, as she desperately chased her own pleasure, wishing more than ever that she wasn’t alone in this too-big bed, that someone else's hands were running over her body, touching her and pleasuring her in all the ways she wanted. She was so turned on that her own fingers would certainly get her there, but at the same time, they weren’t nearly enough. 

She craved thick, calloused fingers pushing inside her, opening her up, and delving deeper than her fingers would go. Rey set the novel aside, her own fantasies were enough. Maybe the hands would be a little fumbling, inexperienced, just like she was, but they’d figure it out together. Rey pictured a deep, soft voice asking exactly what she wanted. 

“Does that feel good?” he would whisper in her ear and press hot, biting kisses down the column of her throat. He would lean over her, the breadth of him enveloping her under the warm expanse of his torso. She would look up into his eyes — warm, brown, familiar eyes, grip onto that mop of black hair that never lay flat no matter how much he styled it — and she would feel safe, comforted, and so thoroughly, properly fucked.

Only then did Rey's pleasure peak, her vision whited out as she rode the wave of pleasure that crashed through her, spreading outwards from her core to the very tips of her toes. The silk nightgown clung to her body in a sheer layer of sweat, her thighs slick with evidence of her pleasure. 

Rey collapsed onto the bed, her heart pounding as she came down from the high. Her eyes blinked open slowly and her chest heaved with steadily slowing breaths as the realization of what she had done fully hit her. 

Her face flushed with embarrassment as she pulled her fingers out gently from inside herself, wiped them off on the bed covers, and sat up against the pillows. 

What was she _thinking_? She wasn’t, evidently. The scandalous novel had gotten the better of her. Rey's eyes darted around the room, half expecting someone to be there, watching her, judging her for what she had done, but of course there was no one. Her room here was private, the Senator had promised as much. 

At the thought of Senator Solo her face heated up again, and she tried desperately to tear the memory of thinking about him while she was doing that from her brain. 

Fresh air was what she needed. Her room was too stuffy, too hot with lingering arousal. 

Rey stood on shaky legs and grabbed a nightgown from the open suitcase to wrap loosely around herself. She walked back through the drawing room, swearing to never pick up one of the holonovels off the shelves again, and threw open the door to the balcony. 

Evening air, pungent with the scent of pine and dew, filled her senses and she inhaled deeply. 

An intake of breath from the other side of the balcony made her turn her head, and the sight she saw seemed to have been plucked from her vivid fantasies just minutes ago.

Ben Solo stood at the far end of the balcony, wearing a pair of dark trousers and nothing else. His broad, muscled torso was exposed under the moonlit sky. His chest heaved with deep breaths, and Rey felt for a moment that their hearts beat in time with one another. She felt his eyes drag all over her body, countering the effects of the cool air as she felt even hotter than before under his gaze. 

Could he tell what she had done? The thought tore through her uninhibited, and she was shocked to find that some part of her, the part that was still unsatisfied, wished that he did. 

He broke the silence first. 

“Uhm, I should head off to bed,” he said, taking the wind out of her sails. The evening breeze glided over her, cooling the moisture that clung to her skin, and she shivered uncontrollably. His eyes left her body, and Rey missed their heat almost immediately. He stared straight through his open door and called out “Goodnight, Rey.”

He left without a further word, giving Rey the quiet solitude she had sought out on the balcony, though she found her desire for it had waned significantly. 

“Goodnight, Ben,” she whispered to the stars, and slunk back to her room, shame and longing coursing through her veins in equal measure. Rey took in the sight of her room, the air still hung low with a sensuous heat. 

She could count on one hand the number of times she had engaged in such activities, always alone of course. Her home had never felt like a comfortable enough place to let loose in such a way, nor even the Royal Palace when she lived there as Queen. Not with her grandfather always lurking, judging. Something discomforted her about the fact that he would be able to sense a difference in her. 

It was only a couple times when she had been alone, off-planet on some political business, and often with at least a small bit of alcohol in her system from the formal dinners and functions she had been paraded around at. It had always been a perfunctory way to let off steam, quick and to the point. 

This on the other hand was something else. Never had she let herself enjoy it so languorously, with no pretense for a reason except that she wanted to, and a seductive book had aroused her. 

Rey found she could no longer be in this room, amongst the lace and silk and warm, inviting bed that called to her for more. She took a quick shower, cleaning away the wetness that lingered between her thighs, the sweat off her body, and all that they represented. She did not stay long in the bedroom after that, but instead grabbed a throw blanket off the end of the bed, and took it with her into the drawing room. Finding a small, lightly cushioned couch, she lay down onto it, tucking the thin blanket around herself, and curled her legs up to her chest. 

She shut her eyes and willed for sleep to take her so that she would no longer have to think of all the soft, warm things being held out in front of her, and how easy it would be to simply grab them, and leave the cold, darkness behind her forever. 

It was a long time before sleep finally found her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the things that's made me most sad about this universe is that Leia wouldn't have been adopted by the Organa's, who I love :( I like to imagine that Bail, Breha, Padme and Anakin are all great friends throughout their whole lives, and that the Organa's still adopt some beautiful baby girls that Leia and Luke are BFFs with. Just makes me feel a little better.
> 
> Star Wars References:  
> [Holonovel](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Holobook) (but I imagine them to be like e-readers)
> 
> Drop a kudos, comment, or come hang out with me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/empirestriksben) or discord: empirestrikesben #4059


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In sleep, without a troubled frown cast over her brow, pulling down her pink, feminine lips, she looked…
> 
> Beautiful. She looked beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter: a character gets injured and there are descriptions of blood. 
> 
> See the end of the chapter for attention to something near and dear to my heart.

Ben woke up with a crick in his neck, a pounding head, and a foul taste in his mouth. 

Of all the things he had inherited from his father, his height, unruly hair, long nose, and flair for the dramatic, his proclivity to hangovers was the worst. He blinked up at the ceiling for a few moments, wishing the sun were not so bright this morning. Slowly, the events of the previous night came back to him and he groaned as the sharp sting of embarrassment struck him again. 

Appearing in front of Rey drunk and shirtless was not the best way to make a good impression, nor was it _acting like himself_ , as his grandmother had instructed. After that he'd stumbled around his room blindly for a shirt, gulped at a glass of cool water — evidently not enough — and fallen asleep. 

Ben clapped a hand over his aching head, rubbing at his temples and wishing more than anything he could tug the curtains across the bed and go back to sleep until the sun went down again and the drumming in his head quieted.

Logically, he knew that would only worsen his headache though, and with an exhausted sigh, Ben rolled out of bed. Quite literally.

He stumbled to the floor, catching himself momentarily on the nightstand, before it too tipped over, sending last night's water glass shattering to the floor, the contents of it spilling over the hardwood. He tried to balance himself on the ground but instead managed to jam a shard of glass straight through his palm. 

“Ow,” said Ben, looking down at the blood quickly pooling around the shard lodged in his hand. The sight of it took his head for an even dizzier spin as he stood up, careful to not touch any more glass, and headed for the ‘fresher. 

Ben leaned over the sink and turned the water on cold. He pulled the shard out of his hand with a quick tug and a pained in-take of breath, and held it under the running tap, the ivory porcelain sink turning red underneath his hand. He threw some water on his face with his uninjured hand, his foggy mind clearing a little under the cool splash. Ben then grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it tight around his hand, sucking a breath in through his teeth as it pinched a little too hard. 

Ben straightened up and shut off the water. He’d have to find a bacta patch somewhere to heal it completely. 

He searched every cupboard in his ensuite but came up empty. The kitchen, maybe, he thought. There too, he found nothing. The white towel had begun to soak through with dots of red, and his head felt so light it could almost float off his neck. 

“Threepio!” Ben called. Where was that damn droid when he needed him? Ben walked out into the hall leading to his suite and called again, “Threepio where the kriffing hell are you!”

Ben stalked up and down the hall searching for him. He even searched out front where he had last seen Threepio at the bottom of the steps the other day. He turned back into the front hall and was about to call for him again when the memory of a strangely similar incident suddenly struck him. 

One time, on a family holiday to Varykino when he was ten, he'd sliced his hand open while chopping vegetables for the dinner he and his grandmother were making that night. She had rushed into action, grabbing a bacta patch from the aid kit she kept under the sink. 

" _I always keep some handy in here_ ," she told him after she patched him up, and wiped away the few tears that had begun to roll down his cheeks, " _your grandfather is very prone to accidents._ "

Ben stared down the seemingly endless dark hall that led down to Padmé's old quarters, to the kitchen where she'd healed his cut — to the wing his grandmother had insisted they had put Rey up for the week, and where she was likely still sleeping soundly. 

Ben sucked in a deep breath, bracing himself for the worst, and tip-toed quietly down the carpeted hall. If he was lucky, he could slip through the drawing room and into the kitchen without being noticed. 

After what seemed an eon he arrived in front of her door. Maybe the bacta wasn't in there anymore, he thought. Maybe he could wait, _maybe_ Threepio would finally show his face and come up with a better solution. 

Ben's hand gave a painful throb. The towel was now so soaked through with blood it weighed down on his arm, and between the blood loss and the hangover, he felt like he could keel over at any moment. Even if the aid kit turned out to not be there anymore, it would be idiotic not to check. 

Ben tapped on the door lightly. 

"Rey," he whispered. "Are you in there?"

Ben knocked again for good measure, but it was unlikely she would hear him from all the way in her room. He turned the door knob slowly until it gave way, and then ever so slightly eased open the door of the drawing room.

His eyes were drawn to a couch near the centre of the room, a single sliver of light draped over the velvet red cushioning and mahogany trim. 

Curled up under a thin dark green blanket, her knees tucked up to her chest, and chestnut hair swirled around her face, was Rey. In sleep, without a troubled frown cast over her brow, pulling down her pink, feminine lips, she looked…

Beautiful. She looked beautiful.

Ben's eyes trailed further down her body, underneath where the green blanket had fallen down her shoulders, and he realized she was still wearing the nightgown from the previous night — the one he'd accidentally spotted her in during his drunken nightly stroll out onto the balcony. Shame hit Ben hard as he remembered his indiscretion, and suddenly he felt mortifyingly voyeuristic. 

He tucked his head out of the room and shut the door again, this time with maybe too loud a click. 

_Why was she sleeping on the couch?_ Ben thought. The practicality of ever getting to that bacta patch aside, he couldn't help but feel a kernel of concern wiggle its way into his heart. Was she uncomfortable in her room? Had she had a bad dream? He couldn't very well ask her without explaining that he'd walked in on her sleeping and after last night, it was not a conversation he was keen on having. 

Ben rested his head against the frame with a thud and sighed deeply. His entire body throbbed in pain, his head felt like a Mudhorn had made itself at home inside his skull, and the confused, frustrated feelings from last night had reawoken at the sight of Rey again. He was about to give up and slink back to his room to try and sleep off the pain for the next four days when the door flung open.

Rey stood in the threshold of the doorway, the green blanket wrapped tightly around her from her neck down. Her hazel eyes widened in shock, and then dropped down into a familiar scowl.

"What do you want?" she said, the grogginess in her voice softening the anger somewhat. She rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes and then dragged it down over her mussed up hair in a failed attempt to flatten the wild tangles. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," he said, ignoring the way his heart ached at all of the adorable, sleepy mannerisms of hers that he was discovering. 

"Well you did, so you better have a damn good reason," said Rey.

Ben helped up his bloody, towel-wrapped hand.

"I kind of hurt myself," he said sheepishly. Quickly he realized that without the prior knowledge about the bacta patches in the kitchen, it looked like he was just showing off the wound, so he followed it up with, "my grandmother used to keep an aid kit in the kitchen off this room, do you mind —" 

" — no, please, come in. _Kriff_ , you're bleeding everywhere," Rey said, stepping aside. Her eyes widened to saucers as she regarded his bound up hand.

"Thanks," he said.

Ben slipped past her and followed the familiar path through the shelves of holobooks, off to the right where he knew the kitchen door was. He opened it with his shoulder and dove straight for the cupboard under the sink.

At last, there, behind some bowls and a washcloth, was the aid kit he remembered from his childhood. He pulled it from the dark corner of the cupboard and set it up on the counter. He'd gotten it open with one hand and was fishing out the bacta patch when Rey walked in.

She had thrown on one of his sleep shirts, the collar loose enough that he could still spot the rosy strap of the nightgown underneath. 

"Here," she said, taking pity on him, "let me help."

Ben held his injured hand out in offering. Her fingers gripped into the knots he’d tied to hold the towel around the cut, pulling at them gently until they gave way. She kept pressure on the wound with one slender but strong hand, while she ripped open the bacta patch with her teeth, and with a quick switch-out of the towel, slapped the bacta patch over his hand. 

He let out a groan as the bacta started to seep into the cut, soothing and healing the torn tissue. He had half of mind to ask for another one for his head, which still throbbed painfully from dehydration. 

“Thank you,” he said with a sigh, leaning against the counter. 

“Don’t mention it,” Rey replied, a tight smile flitting across her face for a moment. Rey still held his injured hand between hers, and she smoothed down the corners of the adhesive patch, the delicate press of her fingers almost as soothing as the bacta itself. “So what happened?”

“I broke a glass, got a piece in my hand trying to clean it up,” he said, conveniently leaving out the falling-out-of-bed part. If she didn’t totally believe him, her face made no tell of it.

With the urgency of the crisis dissipating, Ben was left with a sudden awareness of their closeness, and the memories of their late night encounter floated through drunken haze to the forefront of his mind, which still pounded with a persistent ache. Him in his state of undress, and Rey in her slip of a nightgown. 

He'd also been expecting her to try and shove him out of her space as soon as his injury had been attended to, but instead she continued to rub small circles around the sensitive skin of the cut. Ben wasn't so much of a fool that he didn’t jump at the tentative, friendly opening she was giving him. 

“About last night, and yesterday more generally...” he began, and Rey’s hazel eyes widened a little as they met his.

“You mean the you-acting-like-an-ass-all-day thing, or seeing-each-other-out-on-the-balcony-last-night thing?”

Ben let out a nervous laugh. 

“Uhh, both I suppose?” he said. “The… former one, to start with. Look, I was frustrated with all of this, and I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”

Ben hated saying sorry. It made him feel like he was a little kid again, and Leia had found him awake and reading far past his bedtime, or sneaking an extra sweet out of the jar. Being a politician had made him good at giving apologies, without ever having to say the words, let alone mean them. But here, with Rey, he wanted to be better. She didn’t deserve this situation any more than he did. 

"In my family, when we hurt each other, we talk about it — Nana's orders. I know as difficult as this is for me, it's harder for you. We're in my family home, and your family hasn't exactly been…" Ben treaded carefully as Rey raised an eyebrow at him, "what I'm trying to say is, I'm not interested in making you angry at me. I know it's all we've ever done but we don't always have to fight. Not here."

Rey was silent for a slow, painful minute, the expression on her face search, curious, but maybe with an air of something else, something that looked like hope. Then she said:

"You call _Padmé Amidala_ 'Nana'?" a small smile making itself known in the corners of her mouth as she shook her head in disbelief. 

Ben laughed, a little caught off guard.

"Well, not since I was old enough to read about her in the archives," Ben joked, bringing that agreeable smile to Rey's eyes. "But yeah, I did when I was little."

"Hard to imagine you being little," said Rey, sizing him up with a dark gaze. Ben swallowed around a lump that had formed in his throat. Then she said, “and what about… the other thing.”

Ben felt his face warm as he remembered what ‘other thing’ she was talking about. His eyes gave into a betraying glance down her body, her bare legs still on display even underneath the far less revealing oversized shirt. 

“I, uhm,” Ben felt warm all over as he desperately searched for what the right thing to say was, and after an extended silence, for one single thing to say at all. 

Naturally, Rey beat him to the punch.

“I didn’t know you were out there, otherwise...” she said, trailing off awkwardly. She looked almost torn between letting go, and or digging into him. Inexplicably, she chose the former. “It wasn’t your fault, you shouldn’t feel bad.”

“I do,” said Ben quickly, “I got drunk and acted out. It was unbecoming, and not at all like me. Really the opposite of the type of thing I promised _Nana_ I would do.”

Rey nodded, her eyes casting down almost sadly. 

“Yeah well, maybe we’re both not quite living up to our family’s standards right now.”

Ben’s shoulders sagged with relief. Somehow, she was feeling it too. The sense that no matter what you did, it was never good enough for your family. There was always too much riding on your shoulders. 

Even though he knew it would give her far too much ammunition he should ever give a Palpatine, he said, “I can only speak for myself on this, but I wasn’t exactly planning on spreading around everything that goes on here once we get back.”

“What do you mean?” she said cautiously. 

“I just mean… if you want to disappoint your grandfather and take a break from being a conniving evil monster, he won’t hear about it. Not from me.”

Rey barked a laugh at that, but there was something frightened hiding just behind her eyes, as though even the suggestion that her grandfather would hear whispers of a softer side to his granddaughter was enough to strike fear into her heart. As always, she wiped any trace of fear off her face and recovered quickly.

“So, what happens in Varykino, stays in Varykino?” she asked with a sly smile.

“Something like that,” said Ben quietly, her insinuation doing nothing to quell the warm feeling coursing through his body. For some reason when such suggestive comments came from her lips, they sounded far less disagreeable. 

“I’ll think about it,” she said with a nod and much to his chagrin, finally let go of his sore hand. 

It seemed like a note of finality to their conversation, and even though Ben felt like he was bursting with a thousand more things to say, he knew she would only push him further away if he went even a little too far.

Instead, he took his cue to leave, and with a final word of gratitude for her assistance in patching him up, he slipped out of the kitchen and returned to his wing of the estate in search of painkillers and a shower. 

He found the former after another painful twenty minutes of searching and only after the latter did his hangover finally dissipate. Food helped as well, though he was far too exhausted to make much of an elegant breakfast — or should he consider it lunch. He ate alone in his suite, unwilling to accidentally force Rey into any interactions with him that she may not want yet. 

Finally, with a full stomach, a clear head, and a slowly healing palm, Ben was staring down an afternoon of nothing to do. As his tenuous proposal of friendship to Rey sat unanswered, he was hesitant to stray into any common spaces where she may be wanting to sit alone and think. He knew he was likely being over-cautious, but with everything that happened last night, better safe than sorry was likely the best policy. 

As Ben mentally ran through the list of things he wanted to do this week with those limitations in mind, it left only one avenue — he had to fix the damn compressor on the _Falcon_.

She’d had been acting up so badly recently his mother nearly didn't let him fly her here, but Han had made the point that if Ben took it for the week at least he might have some time to get his hands on her. 

_“You know, if you’re not busy getting your hands on something else,”_ his father had said with an indecent waggle of his eyebrows. Leia had slapped him around the head for that one. Ben cringed at the memory.

He left through the side door again, coming around the west side stairs of the estate where Rey likely wouldn't see him, and into the hangar bay where the beast of a ship sat up on its landing gear. He pulled down the ramp of the freighter, which slid with a groan down to his feet. 

_Oil the hinges_ , Ben added to his list of tune-ups the ship needed. 

He climbed the ramp until he was in the belly of the ship, the curved durasteel walls encasing him in a familiar fluorescent hue. Ben headed for the cockpit, grabbing a toolbox from one of the compartments on his way. He settled into the familiar spherical cockpit and got to work. To start, he ripped open the panel off to the left of the passenger seat and stared into a sea of circuits and blinking lights. He let out a deep sigh. 

Ben could fly the _Falcon_ in his sleep, but when it came to it’s maintenance, he was out of luck more times than he would care to admit. This type of manual work and troubleshooting didn’t come naturally to him. 

“ _You’re an ideas man_ ,” Han used to say, ruffling his hair — back when the top of Ben’s head only reached his father’s hip. “ _I’ll fix the ship, you tell me where to fly her_.”

That had been great when he was a child, but now that he took more trips in this bucket of bolts without Han than with him, he’d run into more than a few problems. One time he got stranded on Ithor with a faulty hyperdrive. When he tried to take it to a mechanic they told him they didn’t carry parts for a ship that old anymore, and he had to call Han and have him talk through how to get it going at least until he could make it back to Naboo in one piece. 

Not looking for a repeat of that incident, and unwilling to invite commentary about why Ben was busying himself with the _Falcon_ instead of attending to his fiancé, Ben condemned himself to figuring it out alone. 

He reached forward with the multi-purpose tool, and in an unsurprising turn of events for this day, immediately shocked himself. A sharp electric current ran painfully up his arm — the same that he’d rammed a shard of glass through that morning. 

“Ow! Kriff!” he shouted, pulling back sharply. 

_Turn off the power first, Ben,_ said a voice in his head that sounded unsurprisingly like his father’s. Ben shook out his stinging hand as he stomped back to the heart of the ship where the control panel to switch off the main power to the circuitry was kept. He yanked up the panel in the floor that it was housed under and jumped down into the belly of the ship. 

The control panel to turn off the power to the _Falcon's_ circuitry required two hands — one to turn a knob and one to pull a level. On a regular day, it was no issue to do by himself, but between the cut, the bacta patch and the electric shock running through his arm, it made the task almost impossible. After several unsuccessful tries that left his right arm shaking in pain, Ben rested his head on the lip of the floor panel. 

The exhaustion of everything — the rough night, the terrible sleep, his continued failed attempts to salvage the day — hit him hard. 

Why couldn't Rey just end this week short, cut their losses, and they could go back to trying to forget the other one ever existed, as they'd done for the past two years. Ben rested his head on the lip of the floor. He was almost regretting his offer of friendship, truce, whatever he wanted to call it. Certainly she would only use it as more fodder for whatever plan her grandfather had cooked up with this engagement. 

“ _The Skywalkers are weak_ ,” Ben could picture him saying in his feeble, sinister voice, “ _the Solo boy’s compassion only proves it._ ” 

He was a fool. Of course Rey wouldn’t agree to a truce. 

The sound of light footsteps tiptoeing up the ramp stole his attention, and his mouth fell open slightly at the sight of Rey Palpatine walking aboard the _Millennium Falcon_. Her face was inscrutable, save for the ever so slight arc of one eyebrow.

“Sounds like you could use some help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars References:  
> [Millennium Falcon](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Millennium_Falcon)  
> [Bacta](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bacta)
> 
> \---
> 
> In my country, Canada, there is a long-standing history of violence against Indigenous Women and Girls. A couple weeks ago in Canada, Chantel Moore, a woman who is my age, and a mother to a young daughter, was senselessly killed by a police officer during what was supposed to be a wellness check. As a political scientist and a long time champion of Indigenous rights in Canada, this struck me very deeply. There is a lot that needs to be done to address systemic racism that exists in Canada, Chantel's case is just one of many examples of injustices, but I would appreciate if you have the time putting your name to [this petition](https://www.change.org/p/new-brunswick-city-council-justice-for-chantel-moore?recruiter=408908395&recruited_by_id=5f02ba02-b284-4047-b5d4-f05fcaba86b5) which is almost at it's goal of 75,000 signatures. Thank you.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you have a death wish? I can’t fly this ship.”  
> “Come on,” said Ben, inclining his head towards her, “when have you ever turned down an opportunity to show me up at something?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it (aka an insane amount of enjoyment!!)

For two hours Rey sat on the shared balcony and waited for Ben Solo to reappear with some sly quip about how foolish she was to think his offer of friendship was genuine. As each minute ticked by, the sun inching its way across the cloud-filled sky, she came to the realization that he was not in fact, joking. 

She knew, deep down, that not everyone had been raised the way her grandfather had raised her — to assume that the intention behind every kind act was simply a roundabout way of weaseling out of them something that you secretly wanted all along. She thought that at least Ben Solo, only heir to the Skywalker dynasty, was one of those people, though. 

That’s why she expected him to be all over her this afternoon, unrelenting until he got an answer about his proposal, and defensive if her answer was no. 

Yet it did not come. She neither saw nor heard from him for ages after she’d bandaged his hand. So she waited, fuming at his lack of underhanded cruelty, and resisted the urge to delve back into the personal library of Padmé Amidala to find out what other scandalous secrets lay hidden amongst the unassuming shelves. 

From the bottom of the dozens of steps that led down to the hangar bay came, for the second time that morning, Ben Solo’s shouts of pain. 

“ _Ow! Kriff!_ ” Rey heard him shout. 

She tried not to care, but she’d never been very good at ignoring her curiosities. As if this morning wasn’t evidence enough that it got her into trouble more times than it was worth, she was drawn once again by the siren song of Ben Solo hurting. 

Rey drifted from the lounge chair on the balcony, through the halls of the estate, and down the steps they had arrived through which led down to where the _Millennium Falcon_ sat, propped up on landing gear, the ramp open and beckoning her forwards. 

Something stopped her from walking towards it right away. The thought of her grandfather finding out gripped the soles of her shoes to the stone ground, as though he were right there in front of her, holding her back with the force of his mind. 

This ship was dangerous. Nothing more than a rusted shell of a bygone era. Yet something about it, much like the holonovel, tempted her. The aura of rebellious freedom it exuded, perhaps. Just as last night, she desired more than anything to know what it felt like to give in. 

Rey held her breath and took one shaky step onto the ramp. The durasteel held up better than she had thought. It was sturdy, safe. She took another. 

Before she knew it, Rey stood at the entrance to the belly of the ship, the cool, dark interior shutting out the clawing heat of the sun and dousing her in cool, filtered air. The interior did not surprise her. The dirty, curved walls, wires and tools strewn about the floor, and faint, flickering lighting were almost exactly what she pictured. What did surprise her, however, was the sight of Ben Solo’s head peeking above a hole in the floor of the ship, his lips parted in a perfect circle.

Rey unconsciously raised an eyebrow and said, “looks like you could use some help.”

“Maybe,” he said, his voice a little unsure, “but I don’t know why you’d offer it. I know this ship terrifies you.”

Ah yes, Rey remembered now how her grandfather had made up that lie to prevent her from doing this very thing. Somehow, it only added to the thrill of being aboard. 

“Well, that may have been exaggerated somewhat,” Rey said, approaching slowly to where he was stuck in the cutout of the floor. “I may not trust your flying skills, but I’m sure this ship isn’t going to kill me just sitting on the ground here. Though, it sounds like it’s trying to kill you.”

Ben huffed a laugh and held up his right hand, still with the bacta patch wrapped around it, except now it was also shaking ever so slightly. 

“Shocked myself trying to replace a power coupling,” he said, as though it was no big deal that hundreds of volts had run through him only minutes ago. “Didn’t realize the off-switch has some sort of child-proof lock on it, can’t get the kriffing thing to turn off now.” 

“Idiot-proof more like,” Rey teased, only to hide the worried tremble that ran through her. She sat down, her legs dangling over the opening in the floor, and lowered herself to the underbelly of the ship with a small jump. There wasn’t much space down here, and Ben Solo’s tall, broad frame leaned over her in the enclosed container of the power station, his brown eyes wide and searching. 

Rey felt her cheeks flush a little as she realized this almost resembled her fantasy from last night. Almost. 

Thankfully, he turned back to the task at hand before her mind had the chance to wander further. 

“This knob has to be turned at the same time as this lever,” he said, pointing out each. “Again, it would be easy on any day where I didn’t injure my hand two times in as many hours, but here we are.”

“It’s fine,” said Rey. “I’ll pull the lever, you just turn the knob. Has to be done at exactly the same time?” He nodded and obliged her by reaching his left hand up to the knob, readying it to turn on her signal. Rey reached across his outstretched arm to grab hold of the handle. 

“One, two, three —”

Synchronous to the millisecond, they each dispatched their task swiftly, throwing the entire ship into black. Only the faint light emanating from the open ramp several feet away illuminated Rey’s vision. 

Under the cover of darkness, and with her purpose in this tiny space fulfilled, Ben felt all the more close. Rey’s eye level met the open top buttons of Ben’s shirt, a little more than a sliver of his pale, broad chest peeking out. The memory of seeing him out on the balcony last night floated to the forefront of her mind, and she unconsciously licked her lips. That indescribable feeling of longing crept up again, the same that had driven her to climb aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ only minutes ago. How easy it would be to lean into that rebelliousness again…

“Thanks,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. Though unless Rey’s imagination was working overtime, there was something a little husky and rough in the tenor of his voice. “Let’s get out of here, I’ll boost you up.”

Ben moved towards her and raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question. Rey gave him a curt nod, and without a further word to it, his warm hands gripped into her waist and hoisted her up onto the floor of the ship. For a moment they froze in that tableau, Rey sitting on the edge of the opening, and Ben in between her legs, the heat of his hands still burning into her sides. Almost as quickly as he’d leaned in to hold her, he stepped back, leaving only the hot brand of his long fingers around the small of her back as a memory. Rey let out a shaky breath and swung her legs around to stand up. 

Ben needed no assistance in pulling himself up over the edge of the floor into a standing position. He gestured for her to follow him down one of the halls that led out of the body of the ship towards what Rey assumed was the cockpit. Without the light coming up from the open ramp, the hall deeper into the ship was pitch black, and Rey had to feel her way forwards, relying mainly on the sound of Ben’s slow thudding footsteps just ahead of her. 

They turned a corner and finally the path was lit again, this time by the transparisteel-paned window of the cockpit. Rey couldn’t deny the slight increase in her heartbeat at the sight of the window. She had so often looked through it from the outside while awaiting the Senator for one of their frequent briefings. Now, after all these years, she was looking through it from within. 

They came to a stop in front of an open compartment on the side of the wall. Rey’s eyes widened at the wires and circuits curling around blinking lights and whirring motors. What she would’ve given in her youth to be able to work on a machine like this. 

“Do you know much about ship processors?” asked Ben Solo. 

Rey didn’t want to give too much away about her secret childhood hobby, but replied, “a little.”

“I don’t really,” he admitted, pulling a tool off the ground where it had been discarded earlier. “My dad’s always trying to teach me, but it just doesn’t come naturally like it does with him.”

He poked the tool at one of the wires. Rey wondered if this is what he’d been doing when he’d shocked himself. Thankfully, this time there was no shout of pain that followed when the metal touched wire. The hard line of Ben’s shoulders visibly loosened. 

“Well, why don’t you start by figuring out what’s wrong with it?” Rey offered, searching around the open panel. On a closer examination, it seemed that some of the lights were out completely, while others were blinking too fast in a garish red hue. 

“Oh, I know what’s wrong with it,” Ben growled. “It’s fifty kriffing years older than any other ship in the galaxy, and it’s been in more fire-fights than a Clone-war era battle droid.” 

Ben shook his head slowly, a frown marring his strong features, accentuating his dark eyes and long nose. Rey dragged her eyes away from him to peer back into the open compartment. She followed the wires leading from the lights into the converters, and where they intercepted at a small durasteel box that had been haphazardly shoved into the nest of wires. 

"It's the compressor, isn't it," she said, looking back up into Ben's face, now wearing an expression of cautious surprise. 

"You _do_ know this stuff, don't you?" he said. 

“A little,” she repeated, shrugging him off. “ Give me that."

Rey grabbed the tool out of his hand and a wrench from the box at their feet. Stepping towards the compartment, she got to work.

It was a tough slog at first. The ship was unfamiliar to her, but the basics started coming back to her, and soon enough she was sailing.

"Pass me the jumper bypass," she called to Ben, both her hands occupied in the belly of the ship.

A hydrospanner appeared out of the corner of her vision, held out by her amateur assistant.

"No, not that," she shook her head as a wisp of hair fell out of her buns, falling in front of her face.

Then he handed her a quatdriver. She laughed through her teeth as she loosened another screw and a wire pinged out at her face. 

"Not that either. It's a small metal bar with a v-shaped end," she said. 

"Are you joking?" came Ben's reply along with the sound of dozens of tools hitting the ground.

"Do I _sound_ like I'm joking?" 

"Never mind... I found it."

Finally he handed her the jumper bypass. Rey inserted the v-shaped prong into the compressor and yanked hard. The metal box flung out of the wall and Rey whipped her head around just in time to see Ben catch it out of the air.

"What did you do?" he asked with a gasp, his chest heaving as he knelt on the ground amongst an array of tools and ship parts.

"I bypassed the compressor," Rey said, wiping the back of her hand over the sweat that had collected on her forehead. Ben looked from her to the compressor in his hands, and back again.

"Will that work?" he asked, his expression somewhere between shock and amazement.

"Only one way to find out," she tossed him the jumper, which he also caught out of the air with ease. "I'll turn her back on, you fire her up."

Ben dropped the tools into the box, and stood up from the floor, dusting off his tunic. Rey bounded back to the control panel in the middle of the ship, this time just leaning over the edge and pulling the knob and level simultaneously by herself. _Definitely idiot-proof_ , she thought. The lights flickered back on and Rey returned to the cockpit where she found Ben already settled into the pilot's seat.

She flopped down into the passenger chair beside him. It smelled of worn leather and grease, in an unfamiliar but not discomforting way. The lingering scent of fresh pine that she’d come to associate with the Senator nestled amongst it too.

Rey watched him tinkering away with the controls. Where the mechanics of the ship he seemed uncomfortable and out of his depth, here he was the opposite. 

Ben relaxed into the pilot's chair like he was born there, and for all Rey knew about his wild, rebellious family, he could’ve been. He powered up the engine without blinking an eye, blazed through the pre-flight checks, and soon the ship was purring underneath them. He looked at her with a wicked smile. 

"Want to take her for a spin?"

Rey's eyes flickered away from him, his mischievous grin almost too much to bear. An indescribable feeling bubbled in her chest, something akin to shyness, which was highly unlike her and she made quick work to stamp out.

"Don't be ridiculous," she retorted. "We're not supposed to leave the island, remember. Clause 91-A of the agreement states —" 

"— I know what it says, Rey," Ben cut her off. "We'll just fly her around the lake a bit. What happens in Varykino, stays in Varykino, remember?"

Rey fixed him with a narrow gaze, her heart racing with anxious excitement. _This rebelliousness was infectious_ , she thought. 

"Okay. Just around the lake though."

Ben looked like he was bursting with just barely contained joy, and Rey tried to not read too much into it. In any case, he managed to hold it together as he lifted the landing gear and engaged the thrusters. As they rose above the tree line, it was Rey's turn to try to contain her excitement. 

Never had she flown up front of a ship before, always tucked away in the back where none of the action was. _The business of flying is beneath us_ , her grandfather had said the one time she expressed an interest in it. 

"Can you flip that switch there, the blue one in the middle?" Ben asked, pointing to a large switch off to her right. She flicked it upwards and the engines rumbled louder. "Now she's singing."

They soared far above the lake, dipping in and out of the few clouds that had begun to accumulate over the skies, Rey’s stomach dropping with each plunge. Miles of dark lush forest and clear blue lake stretched out beneath them, and Rey gripped the edge of the dashboard anxiously as Ben took the ship into a sharp climb, drowning their view in fluffy, ivory clouds. Then he slowed their pace a little and said, “do you want to have a go?”

Their eyes met across the dashboard of the _Falcon_ — his, wild and daring — and for a moment Rey was thrown back years, and it was as though they were back sitting across committee tables and briefing rooms, daring each other to just go that one step further. 

“W-what?” she asked breathlessly. “Do you have a death wish? I can’t fly this ship.”

“Come on,” said Ben, inclining his head towards her, “when have you ever turned down an opportunity to show me up at something?”

Without a further word to it, Ben stood from the pilot’s seat and took his hands off the controls. The ship dipped into a stomach-churning dive. Purely on instinct, Rey lunged across the console and grasped the throttle, thrusting it forward until the ship pulled back on course. 

“Ben!” she said angrily, “Don’t do that!”

“I knew you’d catch her,” his voice came from just above her right shoulder, quiet and reassuring in a way that made her stomach swoop for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the level of the ship. 

Rey held the throttle tight, keeping the ship steady as it sailed over another lake, this one most certainly not the same as the Varykino estate sat on, but Clause 91-A and any other regulations she’d put her signature to in the agreement had been left back in the hangar bay. 

Ben reached around her, his long fingers dancing across the buttons and switches while she steered the ship. 

“That’s it,” he said softly as Rey pushed the ship a little faster, “see, I knew you’d be a natural.”

Rey shushed him and slowly they settled into a quiet but palpably thick atmosphere. He hovered behind her anxiously as she guided the ship over hills and meadows, occasionally pressing buttons and muttering small encouragements. Rey was unsure whether he was talking to her or the ship sometimes. 

No matter, she was off in her own world entirely, one of open skies and endless freedom. It was like a tiny box she’d tucked away in the center of her heart, the one that held every wild dream she’d been forced to give up on, unlatched. If her grandfather’s will had been impeded in this one instance, who was to say it couldn’t be again? 

It nearly broke her heart when she realized Ben had navigated them in a sweeping but complete circle, and she spotted the Varykino estate below as he asked her to make a slow, circular descent. 

“Do you want to take over?” she asked. 

“No,” Ben shook his head firmly. “I know you can do it.”

His faith in her was unwavered, and Rey could not understand why. He didn’t linger on the point, but began quickly flicking switches and pulling levers in what Rey assumed was in preparation for landing. As the ship approached the ground, Rey’s heart rate increased. Flying in a straight line was one thing, but landing? What was she thinking, she could get both of them killed. 

As if sensing her spike in anxiety, Ben swooped in behind her again and wrapped his hand on top of hers around the vibrating throttle, easing it down slowly. His warm torso pressed against her side as he reached around further with his other hand, to pull a lever down with practiced ease until finally, the landing gear touched down and they settled to a stop. Despite being safely back on solid ground, Rey’s heart didn’t stop racing until the warm press of his body and hands left her, and even then her touched-starved skin still ached for the warmth to return. 

“There, that wasn’t so hard,” said Ben, breathing heavily and leaning against the console beside her. Rey definitely wasn’t imagining the roughness in his voice that time. Her eyes trailed all the way up his long legs and trim torso before meeting his eyes, which had taken on a dark, heated glint. 

“No, it was… good. It was very good,” said Rey. 

Rey slid out of the pilots seat and stood up to her full height, closing the space between them to a dangerous degree. It took every ounce of willpower not to close it all the way. 

“Thank you, Ben,” she said, her hands gripping onto the seat behind her. He peered down at her, his eyebrows dipping into a quick frown while the corner of his lips curled into a small smile. It took far too long for her to catch her mistake. “ _Senator_. Thank you, Senator.”

 _Kriff_ , when had she started thinking of him as ‘ _Ben_ ’?

“The pleasure was all mine,” he said softly. Then, almost as a planned question disguised as an afterthought, he said, “maybe we could have dinner again tonight? Together, this time.”

That infamous blush tinged the tops of his ears pink, and it was such a joy to see, Rey couldn’t help but say, “yes, that would be nice.”

“Seven o’clock?” he said quickly. “In the Room of Morning Mists?”

Rey nodded. 

“It’s a date.”

Now she had to get off this ship before either of them did something very, very stupid. With a final small smile, Rey walked briskly out of the cockpit, through the hallways, and out of the ramp which descended before her. 

In the clear light of the afternoon day, things looked a lot more perilous. Barely two days in and Rey had turned into some kind of blushing, flirtatious idiot. At least she could say that Ben — _Senator Solo_ — didn’t seem to be immune to the charms of this place either. 

All that meant though, is that she’d have to be on her guard for the both of them. 

She may not have fully understood her grandfather’s plan with all this, but she knew that if this week ended in anything less than Ben Solo’s repudiation as a viable, marriageable candidate, she would have disappointed her grandfather more severely than ever before. 

As Rey threw one final glance towards the Millennium Falcon, she found that some part of her, and not an insignificant one, for the first time in a long time, simply did not care.

* * *

Ben took a deep breath and collapsed against the wall of the cockpit as he watched Rey climb the steps back to the house. His skin still felt like a live wire where he’d pressed up against her on the ship's descent, the tight tent of his pants the last remaining evidence of her touch. 

_Dinner_ , he thought. _How am I going to get through a whole dinner_?

Ben closed his eyes and dug deep into the memories of his minimal Jedi training, utilizing the meditative breathing exercises his Uncle had taught him to calm himself. Finally, after a few minutes of steady breathing, his heart rate slowed to a more normal tempo, and the places where Rey had touched him soothed to a steady pulse. 

Unwittingly, the Jedi Code popped into his head. 

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

_There is no death, there is the Force._

With it came a fuzzy memory of years ago, when he was no taller than a Jawa, reciting the code back to Uncle Luke in one of the training rooms of the Jedi temple on Coruscant. He must have done so a hundred times, but one instance always stuck out in particular. 

The memory of strong hands being laid on his shoulders, and realizing his grandfather standing behind him. 

“Not all can keep such promises, my son,” he’d said in a soft tone to Uncle Luke. “While I’m sure nothing would please Master Obi-Wan more than to see his namesake join the Jedi Order as he did, we would do well to remember that there are many paths one can follow.”

“Of course, father,” Ben recalled Luke saying. 

Less than a year later Ben stopped training with Luke entirely, and instead spent most days trailing behind his grandmother in the Senate, or accompanying his mother on diplomatic missions to Alderaan where she was stationed. That possibility that his grandfather had laid out for him, the one to choose his own path, had led him straight to a career in the Senate himself, and inadvertently, here. 

To an arranged engagement, to a target on his back and Sheev Palpatine holding the blaster. 

To Rey. 

Not for the first time in his life, Ben wished his grandfather was still around. He knew he would feel much better if he was able to settle into an armchair around the fireplace beside Anakin Skywalker, and they could have one of their quiet, laconic talks and know that even all the things he didn’t say were heard and understood. 

His grandfather would know what to do. With Palpatine, with his career. With Rey. 

Ben opened his eyes, the afternoon sun gleaming off the durasteel surfaces made him squint a little. The pressure on his heart had eased somewhat, and he felt calmer than before. With one final sweep around the cockpit for any tools and items that had been left out, Ben finally headed back to the house. 

After freshening up in his room quickly, he headed for his kitchen in search of what to make for dinner. He’d still not seen head or tail of Threepio for two days straight, so if he was going to keep up the charade of his ‘chef-droid’, he’d have to finish making dinner before Rey showed up. 

He found some Gorak meat and Chando peppers, which would go well with the flatbread that had been tucked away in the cupboard that would last only a day or two longer without going stale. All of it would pair well with a vintage Emera wine from the bar shelf in his room. Soon enough, the kitchen was full of the smells of another delicious Han Solo classic recipe. Something fancy, but not too much of a headache to prepare. Always an automatic pleasing combination for his mother. 

Ben couldn’t help it, but the thought of his parents sitting down for a meal together made his mind stray back to Rey. He was grateful for the time alone with a clear task to do, it helped him get his mind off of his confused thoughts and emotions towards her, which felt so out of sync with where their relationship had been at so shortly ago. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being almost on the precipice of something that he couldn’t quite put a name to — or maybe simply didn’t want to. 

Maybe he should forego dinner, he thought. Have Threepio relay a message that he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be available after all. Not that he could still find the damn droid, nor did he really want to cancel the dinner. Embarrassment aside, he didn’t want to let go of this feeling of wanting to pursue something with Rey. 

That thing being a _civil, respectful, friendship_ , he reminded himself with a particularly rough stab at the sizzling Gorak meat. 

No, he’d muddle through dinner, and he’d make a show of putting on his best friendly but distant diplomatic personality. Hopefully, that would set Rey’s mind at ease about any perceived tension in their relationship, and she would be able to enjoy the rest of what was left of their retreat without worry. 

Soon the dinner required his full attention, so as not to under cook the Gorak, or overcook the peppers. Ben set his mind to task, putting all thoughts of Rey from his mind. Finally, the meal was ready just in time, and Ben plated the food on the finest kitchenware he could find, grabbed two wine glasses, and set it all on a tray he’d pulled out of the cupboards. 

Ben carried it down the hall to the Room of Morning Mists, the weight of the tray trifling compared to the heaviness of his heart thudding against his rib-cage. Something about all this, the dinner, the wine, the setting, felt like they were inching towards the edge of some unknown territory. 

Ben couldn’t count the amount of times he’d sat across from Rey at state functions and formal dinners, both of them buttoned up tight in starchy, courtly clothes, separated not just by a dozen diplomats and several feet of space, but by mutual refusal to come together in any meaningful way. 

He couldn’t deny that on some level, his grandmother was right. There was no reason for Ben and Rey to continue this generational fight — the conflict was not between them. Many times Ben had been confronted with the reality that they had more in common than not. 

They were both among the youngest members of the political class, both only children of powerful Naboo families who knew the struggle of growing up under the spotlight. Come to think of it, they’d practically grown up in the same neighborhood until his family moved permanently into their smaller home outside Theed when he was fifteen. 

More than that, this engagement was forcing him to confront that he couldn’t deny similarities in their personality too. Their quick tempers, their sarcastic sense of humor, the certain chaotic nature to their problem-solving that made them a good but reckless team. 

If they burned like this when they were opposed, what inferno would blaze if they could ever stop yelling at each other long enough to agree on something? He remembered with a dull ache, that this very thought was what prompted his drunken, stupid proposal all those years ago at Queen Meridia’s coronation. 

An acute realization struck him across the face, that although he had never intended _that_ proposal to be anything more than a professional gesture, with the passage of time and new, shared experiences, he could not say truthfully that he intoned the same platonic intentions now. 

Now, this desire to come together with her, to be with her, came from a far different place. 

Ben barely had a second to process the epiphany before a sudden noise from the door pricked at his ears, and he turned sharply on his heel to face the entrance. 

He knew who it was, who it could only be, before he turned around. 

Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to extend my deepest gratitude to all those who said they signed the petition I posted at the end of the last chapter. <3 Thank you.
> 
> Also to those of you who guessed that Rey would fly the Falcon at some point -- you were always right and I'm sorry it took us so long to get here lol
> 
> Star Wars References:
> 
> [Quatdriver](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Quatdriver)  
> [Jumper bypass](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jumper_bypass)  
> [Hydrospanner](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hydrospanner)  
> [Gorak meat](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gorak_\(creature\))  
> [Chando pepper](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chando_pepper)  
> [Emera wine](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Alderaanian_Emera_Wine)
> 
> Subscribe or drop a kudos if you liked this chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I suppose I entertained, for a moment, the thought of what a more normal engagement would be like. If we were in a different time, if we were different people.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thank you for your kind comments, they are literally the #1 thing keeping me going. If you want, come hang out with me on twitter! @empirestriksben

Some days Rey wondered if her grandfather could sense when her spirits were lifted, even thousands of miles away, and made it his mission to lower them once more. 

At least, that’s the only reason she could think of for the strange coincidence of finding TC-580 waiting at her door with a message after an afternoon of splendid joy. 

“Lady Palpatine, your grandfather has been waiting to speak with you,” the droid piped up in it’s shrill, emotionless tone just as she stepped through the door of her bedroom. 

“I’m only allowed one emergency communication this entire week,” said Rey, her heart already tightening anxiously.

“He wishes it to be this,” the droid replied.

As strange as it was, she almost wished her uneasy feeling was due to some phantom worry that her family was in danger, or that something worthy of note had happened, but it wasn’t. She dreaded the exact opposite — that her grandfather was simply using up her one allocated communication for the week to waste her time with some trivial matter. 

Rey abhorred her unerring predictions when it came to her grandfather. 

“Has Senator Solo made any mention of Senate proceedings during your stay?” her grandfather’s strained, unnerving voice asked from the blue holo image buzzing in and out of view. He had spared barely a minute on small pleasantries before getting to the obvious purpose of his call. 

Normally, she would be complying as ever, but for the first time in as long as she could remember, something stopped her. 

“We haven’t spoken much at all,” she said. 

Rey couldn’t explain what strange sensation had come over her to make her lie to her grandfather, but she couldn’t take the words back now. Nor, did she find, she wanted to. 

“I see,” her grandfather’s staticy voice drawled through the hologram. Rey stayed quiet. If he sensed her unfaithfulness, he didn’t speak to it. Not directly at least. “Perhaps if the boy is not so intolerable, we could extend this little tryst between you. After all, why not bleed the Skywalkers for all their worth?”

“There is no —” Rey cut herself off. It had been her policy for many years to say as little as she could when it came to her grandfather. He couldn’t twist her words if she didn’t speak any. “It is your decision of course.”

For a moment she held his gaze, daring herself to hold firm, even fight back, but even the strongest stone cannot forever stand against an ocean. Finally, Rey lowered her gaze, and with that small motion, knew she had ceded full control back to her grandfather. 

“Indeed it is, Rey," he said, bereft of even the slightest falsehood of kindness in his voice. "In fact, this entire affair has made me realize that it's about time you were married. You need someone to look after you. Set our affairs in order. It will of course be to one of _our_ allies in the Senate. Domaric is looking to settle down these days, you could be set up well on Coruscant. Brendol Hux’s boy is a bachelor, still. I'm sure we could arrange something there. Though apparently Maratelle has left dear old Brendol for good now. An excellent match _that_ would be, if he would take you, of course…”

Rey held her breath for so long she thought she might faint. Terror gripped her lungs like a vice, and her heart pounded so hard the blood rushing in her ears drowned out the rest of her grandfather’s sentence. She held it together long enough to hear him say, “if he does find you worthwhile to talk to at some point, do let me know, dear.”

She managed a curt nod, and only when the image of his tiny, blue hologram snapped out of existence, did Rey truly, completely break. 

Her knees hit the floor first, the plush carpet absorbing most of the shock. She bent in half, clutching painfully at her head until the elastics around the buns snapped and a curtain of dark hair dropped around her face. Through gritted teeth she held back a scream that threatened to tear her in two, and made her body shake with hot rage. She curled tighter and tighter in on herself until she was nothing more than a small, shaking lump on the floor. 

This was it, then. Forever to be shuffled from suitor to suitor. Men she did not know and did not care to. Each older and more cruel than the next. 

None of them would break all the rules for her. Have lovely breakfasts made for her. Pluck out-of-reach pears from the tallest branches of sun-lit orchards. 

Hot tears stung her eyes, wetting her cheeks and the carpet below, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to tear out of her. She lost track of how long she lay on the rug weeping for an unlived life lost, only that when her cries began to slow and her shaking body finally began to settle, she had distilled her sorrow down to one single thought:

Damn Ben Solo. 

Damn his broad shoulders and his dark hair and his warm brown eyes and his crooked toothy smile and his big... _everything_. Damn his quiet, unassuming company and his sarcastic humor and his terrible, terrible generosity. 

Rey wished more than anything that this engagement had never happened. If she was only to have loveless, anonymous marriages, then rather that all she knew, than to taste the possibility of something else. Something _better_. 

She wished she’d never heard the name Skywalker, or Solo. That her grandfather hadn’t held this hatred for this family all these years, that she could be engaged to someone else. Whoever her grandfather wanted, she no longer cared, as long as she could go to dinner tonight with anybody except Ben Solo. 

_That’s not true_ , a small voice in her head whispered. She hiccupped a dry sob at the thought. 

If it was anyone else, she would not be here, in this beautiful place, with a week of peaceful rest away from the city, from her grandfather, from her cold and lifeless home. In fact, when it came to her next engagement, her grandfather would have no reason to drag out the affair or humiliate her intended husband, and likely would not insist on the traditional evaluation period. 

Then an entirely different thought overtook her. Not an entirely unfamiliar one, but one she had locked away tightly in secret compartments of her heart, where it could never be discovered and weaponized against her.

_I wish_ I _was anyone else_ , she thought. 

Yes, that was more correct. Unlike the last thought, this one brought an unlikely smile to her tired, swollen cheeks. If she was someone else, then she could still be here, in this enchanting place, with Ben Solo’s confounding but delightful company. 

Rey sat up and stretched out her sore arms and aching legs, propping herself up against the side of the soft, large bed, and hauled one of the many pillows off the top, clutching it to her chest. 

If she was someone else, all of it would be easier. With no history between them, no generations of family division keeping them at an impenetrable distance, she could simply give in to what she acknowledged was an undeniable pull. 

With a small, wet laugh she imagined for a moment being some common girl with no last name to speak of. Someone older and more experienced in such matters of romance. Someone Ben Solo would look twice at and not feel guilty. Who would deserve his playful affections and romantic offerings of dinner and wine, and not be so ashamed to delight in his heated glances.

Rey rubbed her eyes and scanned the room, her vision falling upon those cursed suitcases that had gotten her into too much trouble already. This time, an idea struck her. 

Maybe she could be someone else. Just for one night, pretend that she could have all that. 

Pretend that she wasn’t Rey Palpatine, that it would ever work between them. Like the games she used to play as a child, when she would imagine that she was the child of some caring, good people. She would dress up in the servant’s rags and twirl around her room and dream that she was nobody. 

Why not play childhood games one more time, she thought. After all, if her fate was to be wed to a string of old, wicked men, she should revel in this — in _them_ — while she still had the chance. 

Rey stood on shaky legs, but with each step towards the suitcases felt stronger and stronger. All care thrown to the wind, she picked up the two bags full of clothes and tipped the contents onto the ground. Piles of lace and silk in every color fell in heaps to the dark floors. 

She swept through the piles of clothes, tossing aside anything in soft hues of pink and yellow and cream. She needed something that looked — and _felt_ — powerful. Finally, at the bottom of the pile, she found it. 

Picking the piece up by each of its delicate straps, Rey held it out in front of her in awe, the cold ache in her heart slowly receding. 

The color, the cut, the incredible hem… it was perfect. 

The perfect outfit to seduce Ben Solo. 

* * *

Ben’s mouth went dry at the sight of her. Not for the first time this trip, but _Force_ did he hope it was the last, it felt like all the blood in his body ran south, and he gripped the edge of the table to restrain himself from leaning dangerously into her orbit. 

If sex itself could transform into a human and saunter into a room teasingly, it still would not be as painfully, exceedingly, arousing as Rey Palpatine. 

She was wrapped in a thin crimson dress — if that’s even what one could call it — that looked as though if he were to graze his hands over it, which he desperately wished to, it would be petal soft to the touch. A deep neckline plunged in a v down her chest, and a black silk ribbon pulled her thin waist together into a bow. The entire piece fell to the floor in a pool of delicate black lace.

_All wrapped up like a present_ , his mind offered, and his cock twitched helpfully to remind him that it very much liked what it was seeing. 

_Stop gaping at her like a fish and say something_ , he heard his father’s voice scold him. 

“So you found it okay. The room, I mean. Hi.”

Nice. 

“Yes,” she said with a nod. Something about her felt distant, a stark contrast to how she had been this afternoon in the Falcon. Not quite cold, but that something was… off. Ben searched her face for any clues, but she kept her mask on tightly this evening. “Which seat is mine?”

“Uh, any,” Ben looked back at the table. The seat on the left would have the best view of the sunset without straining her eyes, and he stepped over to it and pulled out the chair. She gave him one of her infamous raised eyebrows, but said nothing. Instead, she drifted across the room and slid easily into the chair in front of him. Her perfume smelled of something fresh and floral and he had to shake his head a little to stop himself from leaning closer. 

“Would you care for some wine?” he asked, grabbing the bottle firmly to give his shaking hands something to do. She answered with a nod as she busied herself with unfurling her napkin and laying it delicately across her lap, the cream cloth contrasting strongly with the dark red silk. 

Ben poured the red wine into her glass until she touched her fingers to the rim for him to stop. He tipped some into his own glass, and then finally took his seat at the other end of the table.

As their heated gaze met across the table, Ben felt like a lightning rod being struck repeatedly, as though the storm that threatened to rain down on them this evening was brewing inside him as well as in the darkening clouds above. 

“A toast,” said Rey, raising her glass towards him. He mimicked her action and held his own glass up. 

“To what are we toasting this evening?” he asked. 

Rey pursed her lips for a moment, her eyes searching the ceiling for an answer before flipping back down to him and lowering into a heavy-lidded sultry gaze. 

“To truces. And secrets between friends.”

Ben swallowed around a lump in his throat, and reaching forwards, tapped his glasses against hers with a small clink. Their fingers bumped against each other for a fraction of a second, but it was as though a live wire inside him electrified at her touch, almost akin to the shock from the power socket this morning. 

_Force_ , he could not believe that had only been this morning. Each day here seemed to span a regular week, as though time itself wanted to extend to them it’s full life this week. 

“This looks delicious,” said Rey, finally digging into her dinner with clean cuts of her knife across the grilled Gorak meat. 

Ben cleared his throat, wishing he was less affected by the heat of the air, and that radiated off his dinner date. His _fiancé_. “I hope it tastes as excellent as it looks.”

Rey gave him one final pointed look before her deep red lips parted around a small piece of the meat, and her eyelids fluttered shut as the meat touched her tongue. Her mouth closed around her fork, and as she did so, let out a high, pleased moan, the sound of which went straight to Ben’s cock. Ben gripped the arm of his chair, squeezing tightly to fight the urge to leap across the table and do something, anything that would elicit that noise from her again.

Not that he, with his tiny collection of tepid kisses, would even know where to begin. 

“It _is_ delicious,” said Rey, popping the clean fork out of her mouth with a bright smile sparkling in her eyes. “You must ask your droid to send over the recipe.”

He nodded noncommittally and dropped his eyes down to his plate. Her direct mention of his lie-of-omission made his heart clench unpleasantly, and he avoided her gaze in order to tuck into his own dinner. It was indeed quite tasty, though the meat itself was a tender bird, and the spices did much of the heavy lifting for flavor. If he were to give himself some measure of credit, it would’ve been that even as distracted as he was during the preparation of the food with thoughts of the woman now sitting across from him, he had somehow cooked it just the right amount of time. 

They ate in silence for a little while, only the sound their cutlery against the dinnerware, and the occasional chirping of the native fauna outside the two open double-doors. The humidity, which he had thought reached its peak already, climbed higher still. The storm that came of it was almost certain to wash out their day tomorrow, and Ben’s heart jumped anxiously at the thought of all the things they would have to fill their time with inside the house instead.

As if she had plucked the thought straight from his head, Rey said, “so what’s left on the list of things to do around here?” 

Ben thought on it for a moment as he ripped off a piece of the flatbread and bit into the crispy loaf. 

“Well, have you gotten a chance to look at my grandmother’s library at all? I’m sure there’s a holonovel or two in there that you might enjoy.”

He’d hoped it to be a welcoming proposal, but at his suggestion Rey’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed an even deeper shade of pink than they had been before. Her eyes darted around the room and then fell back to her plate, where she stabbed some of the soft vegetables onto her fork and shoveled them into her mouth. 

Ben could not deny it was a strange response. 

“Or, I could show you the portrait gallery,” he said, trying to find something that sounded more appealing. At this, her lips lifted again into a small smile. 

“That sounds lovely,” she said. The blush lingered on her cheeks and dipped down her neck somewhat — Ben dared not glance down any further for fear of being caught — but she seemed to regain some of her composure and returned to her dinner. “Any more must-see hiking trails?”

“Yes,” Ben nodded, “but I’ll have to show you later in the week. I didn’t pack anything in anticipation for rain.”

“I love rain,” Rey said with a small smile, popping another bite of food into her mouth and staring out the open double doors. “When I was young I always wanted to run around in it, get my dresses all muddy,” her smile slowly dropped into something more somber. A longing, forlorn gaze. “My grandfather never let me though.”

Ben tried to push down the thought that tried desperately to claw out of him, but instead, such as intrusive thoughts are, it rattled around in his head like an ancient coin trapped in a jar. 

_Does she know?_

_Does she know that I know?_

The question threatened to burst out of his chest uninvited, but knowing it would ruin what was otherwise shaping up to be a perfect evening, he held it back. Instead, the very next thought blurted out of his mouth. 

“This is not how I imagined this week would go.” 

Rey turned sharply away from the open doors and fixed him with a strange look. 

“What do you mean?” she asked curiously. 

Emboldened by her openness, he continued, his eyes never once leaving her face. 

“You know, fixing up the Falcon, talking about the weather. I thought it would feel strange, but it doesn’t. It feels... normal.”

Rey’s smile returned and her eyelids lowered again as she cleared her throat. 

“Well, what _did_ you imagine?” she asked, her voice floating down the table with a small, almost imperceptible, sultriness. 

Ben set his knife and fork down onto the plate with a light tap, meeting her direct gaze across the table. 

“I suppose… more yelling. Fighting. An injury or two,” he joked.

“Well, you’ve had enough of those for the two of us,” Rey said, gesturing to his right hand. Ben looked down at his bacta-wrapped palm. “How are you feeling, by the way?”

Ben made a fist with his hand and then opened it. The skin felt tight, but almost healed. As for the electric shock, the spasms had stopped a couple hours ago now. 

“Better,” he said, turning his gaze back to her with a smile. She looked caught off guard for a moment but recovered quickly, adopting a more reserved, cool expression, and returned to her dinner. 

Ben did the same, but her question lingered with him. _What did he imagine?_

Not this, certainly. Not sitting on the balcony in the morning for breakfast, or making dinner for her. Not a long walk through the orchard, the warm morning sun tingeing her cheeks pink as he passed her a ripe pear from the branch. Not inviting her onto the Falcon, handing over the controls, pressing against her soft body to guide her, reassure her, that he wasn’t going to let any harm come to her. 

Not seeing her, the way he did that first night, gleaming under the moonlight, the slip of her nightgown clinging to curves he didn’t know she had, leaving nothing to the imagination, and the feeling of want like never before coursing through his veins. Even now, just thinking about it was enough to make his heart race and heat pool low in his abdomen —

“What did you imagine?” 

The words slipped out before Ben could catch them and their gaze locked across the table. Rey’s dark red lips parted as a deep breath filled her chest. He didn’t think she would answer, but to his incredible surprise, her reply came softly.

“Different things,” she began. “At first, the same as you. Fighting, screaming. The usual,” she said with a sly curve of her lips. Ben’s grip tightened around his fork, the vegetable skewered on the end of it wobbling slightly. “But I suppose I considered… other possibilities.”

“What possibilities?” Ben said, keeping his voice steady and he shoved the bite of food into his mouth to give himself something to do. He barely tasted it.

“I suppose I entertained, for a moment, the thought of what a more _normal_ engagement would be like. If we were in a different time, if we were different people.”

Rey fixed him with a cautious look, her hazel eyes wide and luminescent in the setting sun. Her cheeks flushed with a deep, pink blush, whether from the wine or the humid air he wasn’t sure, only that he longed to know exactly how she would look flushed all over. 

With one last bite of Gorak meat, Rey cleaned her plate entirely. To Ben’s surprise, she pushed her chair back and stood from the table. She wandered towards the open double doors, her red dress billowing behind her, and an absent-minded look in her eye as she stared out to the gardens below. 

Ben considered for a moment leaving her be, but worry crept into his heart. Her mannerisms had been so strange all evening, and she looked forlorn as she leaned out over the stone railing. Having made up his mind, he abandoned his own quarter-full plate and stood to follow her. 

A wall of humid air hit him as he stepped out onto the small balcony. He could feel the hairs on the back of his head already starting to frizz, and a sheen of sweat linger on his forehead. The heat looked to also be affecting Rey, as a few hairs had come loose from her tight up-do, curling around her cheeks and the nape of her neck, and from this vantage point, Ben could tell that her flush dipped all the way down her chest and over the swell of her breasts. His head felt like a warm, muddled mess as she spoke again. 

“It’s not fair,” she said, barely above a whisper, as though she wished for the wind to steal her words and carry them off to faraway lands. Instead, the stale, humid air forced them to linger between them, confronting their thinly veiled meaning. “I keep thinking that if we — if _I_ — was anyone else, anyone at all, this would be so much easier.”

Ben took one daring step towards her, his brain unable to process what his heart had realized she was saying. 

She turned away from the balcony railing and into his space, her hands finding his chest and shoulders, and her eyes staring up into his, brimming with sorrow and want. 

“Why can’t this just be easy?” she whispered, leaning closer with every breath. “Why can’t I be anyone else —”

“If you were _anyone_ else,” Ben said, cutting her off, his heart racing a mile a minute, “I wouldn’t want this.”

It was as though those few words were the last piece of encouragement she needed before her eyes fluttered shut and she pressed her warm, soft lips over his. 

All coherent thought left his head, and the world narrowed down to the points where their bodies pressed together. Her fingers on his cheek. His palm on her waist. 

The only thing more heavenly than the feel of her silk-wrapped body against his, was her lips, pressing tentatively but insistently against his. Ben pulled her closer against him and her hands slid divinely through his hair, making him feel sublimely lightheaded. 

Impatience left him entirely, and he reveled in the sure, perfect, slowness of the moment. He was sure that he could have kissed Rey, and gone on kissing Rey, until the stars tumbled out of the sky and the mountains crashed to the lake, and neither of them would notice the world fall apart around them. 

Were it not for the worst droid in the entire galaxy. 

“Master Solo, I bring urgent news from Queen M— oh my _goodness_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scale of 1-10 how much is Ben gonna care about whatever Threepio is gonna tell him???
> 
> Star Wars References:
> 
> [Domaric Quinn](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Domaric_Quinn)  
> [Maratelle](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Maratelle)  
> [Brendol Hux](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Brendol_Hux)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With an affronted sigh, Threepio turned tail and waddled out of the room, but even as Ben whipped back around, his eyes drinking in Rey’s kiss-swollen lips and pupils blown wide, he knew what he had to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what to say for myself except I promise, 100000% that there is an extremely happy resolution to this fic. Ben and Rey just have to work through some stuff first :(

Ben was not sure which of them broke the kiss first, only that whoever it was must’ve possessed the strength and willpower of ancient gods, which meant he was pretty sure it was Rey. Though heart-rendingly agonizing as it was, Ben could not fault her for it, as it was also imminently necessary, what with Threepio still standing in the very much open and unlocked doorway, his arms raised in shock, and babbling something incoherent about _these Solo men_. 

“Threepio, shut up,” Ben hollered and took a step forward, pulling Rey behind him out of sight, and she let in a sharp intake of breath at the touch of his fingers on her bare forearms. Some unrefined, primitive part of him, some previously detained protective beast, roared in his chest at the thought of anyone else, even a witless droid, seeing them — _her_ — in this moment. “Leave. Now,” Ben snarled at him. 

With an affronted sigh, Threepio turned tail and waddled out of the room, but even as Ben whipped back around, his eyes drinking in Rey’s kiss-swollen lips and pupils blown wide, he knew what he had to do. 

“I will be _right back_ ,” he promised with a shaky breath. Rey gave him a fervent nod, her gaze darting back and forth between his lips and his eyes. It took all his strength to not lean back in and devour her once more. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Tortuously, he dragged himself away from her reach and jogged out of the room, skidding out into the hallway where Threepio had scurried off to. His inclination towards murder grew stronger the second he spotted the gold tin backside of the Skywalker’s family droid. 

“Threepio,” he barked. The droid spun around clumsily to look back at him, mocking Ben’s half-hard, keyed up body with his permanently alarmed expression. “Get your malfunctioning ass back here right now.”

“Senator Solo, I really must be going —”

“That’s funny,” Ben growled, catching up with the droid and grabbing him by his metal arm, “because you were so keen a minute ago to tell me some _urgent_ news that Queen Meridia had brought.”

“Yes, indeed, the Queen did say it was imperative I fetch you at once. However, as you seem to be preoccupied with the young traitorous Palpa—”

“ _Don’t_ speak about my fiance that way,” said Ben, yanking the droid to a halt and raising one threatening finger in his metal face. Ben’s body still thrummed with the heat of Rey’s lips and hands on him, and he would not tolerate a word against her right now. “And where the hell have you been for two days straight?”

Even with his immutable face, Threepio managed to look offended. 

“ _You_ told me to go make myself useful elsewhere so I have been relaxing in the gallery, telling the Maker all about this despicable mess with the Palpatines.”

The _Maker_ , Ben shook his head and fought off a smirk at the thought of Threepio yammering on to the marble bust of Anakin Skywalker on the pedestal in the portrait gallery, likely all about how his grandson was a scourge to the name _Skywalker_.

“Fine,” Ben said, letting go of the droid. “Where’s the Queen, what does she want?”

Threepio turned away and waddled down the hall towards what Ben assumed was the adjoining office to his room, but instead led him down a poorly lit, seldom used hall in the East wing by the gallery. At the end of it was an old wooden door that groaned on its hinges when Threepio held it open for him. 

“She refused to say, only that it was a matter of great urgency and secrecy, and to fetch you at once. I brought her holo projector in here so that _no one_ would overhear.” The droid had wised up enough to not directly attack Rey again, and turned sharply on his heel, his old joints creaking as he brushed past Ben and walked back down the empty hall. 

Ben took a deep breath and stepped into the room. 

Queen Meridia’s holo hung in shimmering blue light on top of an otherwise empty, dilapidated table in the center of a room no larger than a broom closet. A tense stillness hung about the space in a way that made Ben feel like this was more a clandestine rendezvous between spies than an official political meeting. 

Any residual exhilaration he felt, any lingering warmth from the touch of Rey’s hands on his skin, drained out of him immediately at the sight of the petrified expression on the young Queen’s face. 

* * *

Only when Rey watched the end of Ben Solo’s tunic whip around the door in pursuit of his droid did a breath of air return to her lungs, pouring oxygen back into her dizzy, serotonin-flooded brain. She laid a hand over her heaving chest to feel her heart, which had begun to pound with terrifying swiftness. 

Rey was sure she had never felt hotter in her entire life. Between the humid air which threatened to break at any minute, and the memory of Ben Solo’s enormous, warm hands caressing every soft curve of her body branded into skin. 

_My first kiss_ , Rey thought, touching the tips of her fingers lightly to her lips. 

It had been far better than some of the tales she had heard whispered between her handmaidens, of clumsy teenage trysts, or worse yet, the unwanted, rough kisses delivered from a drunken, ancient aristocrat. 

No, hers had been exquisite — divine, even. Perfect. 

Rey couldn’t help but feel like she owed a great deal to the crimson gossamer dress that hugged her body in a tight, sultry embrace. Slipping it on this afternoon had given her an intoxicating feeling of confidence, without which she wasn’t sure if she would have been able to delight in their date to the same degree. 

It was the perfect thing to make her easily fall into that image she had drawn in her mind of who she could be. At dinner, she didn’t shy away from Ben’s heated stares, but welcomed them. Asserted herself instead of diminished herself. 

So when he had asked, so earnestly, surprising even himself it seemed, what it was that _she_ had imagined they could be like together, she held nothing back. 

Rey’s body hummed again at the memory of the pleasurable caresses that had come from that admission, and her mind filled with all the different ways she could be kissed next. Deeper, slower, quicker. Not only on her lips, but down her neck, her chest, and lower still. Rey couldn’t tell how long she stood there, lost in a hundred different fantasies, before she was shaken from her thoughts only by the sound of his heavy footsteps at the door. 

Excitement rushed through her at the prospect of how any one of those fantasies was on the brink of reality, and the only thing left to decide was which of them to choose first. 

Each one of those hopes died on sight of the expression on his face when he rounded the corner. 

* * *

“Your Majesty.” Ben whispered with a small bow of his head and shut the door behind him. “What’s happened?”

The Queen looked back and forth to each side of her, as to check if the room outside of Ben’s holo view was empty of all imaginable eavesdroppers and meddlers. Decidedly, it must have been, as she finally whispered — 

“I didn’t know who else to turn to. I still — I still don’t know if —”

“It’s alright,” said Ben, toeing the line between deferential and consoling. Whatever had shaken the Queen like this, it wasn’t good. “I am at your service, you can always discuss things with me.”

She nodded once, took a deep breath, and began. 

“It all started the evening you departed for the Lake Country. All the attendees of the Mid-Rim committee received a notice that the regular committee room on Coruscant was unavailable, and the meeting would instead be held on Ansion. I left at once, knowing even with a diplomatic pass through the hyperlanes it would take days to get there. I arrived in time, but Senator Cander had already begun the meeting. They asked me what I was doing there, and I explained that you had requested my presence. There was some arguing amongst the members, but since they could not bar me from attending, I was allowed to stay. They returned to the discussion that had begun before I arrived and... and —” she stared up at him helplessly before she finally whispered, “they were debating a motion to _secede from the Republic_.”

Ben’s blood ran cold at her words, as though his entire body had been submerged in frozen carbonite. 

Secede from the Republic?

Even the repetition of the words in his head didn’t help to process them. Incredibly, Queen Meridia continued. 

“Senator Cander seemed to be the main force behind it. He said that the Mid-Rim had always had unique needs that the Republic had ignored for too long, and that we would be better served with a centralized government outside of the Galactic Republic. One that didn’t answer to the Jedi Council, that could set it’s own trade routes, and could protect itself when attacked.”

Hours of history lessons came streaming back to Ben, sitting in stuffy classrooms at Bayonard to hear geriatric professors tell tales of long past wars. Endless nights bent over his desk, composing tedious essays on the causes of the Clone War. 

Separatism. Invasion. Trade route disputes. Distrust of the Jedi Order. 

These were old fights, the resolution to which his grandparent’s generation had fought and died for long ago. Whoever was behind this was reopening decades-old wounds. Ben wanted to know — for what.

“What was the proposal?” he asked, and Queen Meridia’s mouth tightened into a firm line. 

“Senator Cander has proposed the formation of a Mid-Rim Empire, to be ruled by a _Supreme Chancellor_ chosen from amongst the current Senators of the planets,” she explained. 

“Let me guess, he’s recommended himself for the position?” Ben asked derisively. He’d never held much respect for the arrogant, contemptuous Senator, but this was a new low.

To Ben’s shock, Queen Meridia shook her head, a cautious sadness taking over her as she spoke. 

“His proposed Supreme Chancellor is… Senator Solo it’s…”

“Who?” he begged, but somewhere, deep in his heart, he already knew the answer. 

“It is your fiance. The former Queen, Rey Palaptine.”

Silence hung between them for far too long, each second of it driving new shards of devastation into Ben’s heart, shattering him slowly like a ship pushing through glacial ice. 

He decided he would not break in front of the Queen. Could not. 

On top of the obliging sense of duty he felt to remain a resolute defender of his planet in front of his Queen, she was also thirteen years his junior, and looked absolutely terrified. 

Heartbreak and anger would have to wait. 

“What was the resolution to the meeting?” he gritted out through a clenched jaw. 

“There was none such as yet,” she whispered. “Senator Cander has called an additional emergency meeting of the committee to be held two nights from now. This time, on Naboo.”

“At the palace?” Ben frowned. “Why did you agree to it?”

Queen Meridia shook her head and delivered her final blow.

“Senator Cander said we have been invited to the private home of the Palpatine’s in order to discuss the proposal further.”

At this, Ben hung his head. He rubbed a hand over his face, scratching at his stubbled jaw. His fingers grazed across his lips and met an unfamiliar, tacky substance. He pulled his hand back and looked down at the crimson red residue of Rey’s lipstick painted across his fingertips. 

_I’m such a fool_ , he thought as shame and humiliation flooded his body like poison.

“Thank you for telling me this, and for your attendance at this meeting,” he whispered, unable to continue masking the desolation in his voice. “I will not need you to stand in for me at the next one. I will be returning to Theed.”

“Senator, your retreat will not yet be over —”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, I think it’s over.” 

The Queen nodded. For a moment, neither of them said anything, but the knowledge of betrayal hung in the air thickly between them. Although it pained him to think about it, he recalled that Meridia and Rey had been close friends, despite her grandfather’s ill will towards the new Queen. The memory of what Rey told him their first day here, on that warm easy walk through the orchard and around the lake, struck him suddenly. 

“Congratulations, Your Majesty, on your seventeenth life day. I am sorry to have ruined it in this way,” he said with another bow. “I will let you return to your night.”

“We shall speak again soon, Senator Solo,” she said. 

Finally, her hologram clicked off, and with it the only source of light in the tiny, empty room. 

Ben shut his eyes and willed the world to disappear behind the darkness. That just for a moment the passage of time would grind to a halt and let him mourn before throwing him back to the lions. Time, of course, did not work in such ways, and Ben knew that if he was gone much longer, Rey might come looking for him. 

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and pushed hurt and betrayal into a distant corner of his heart, where he would not touch it until this matter was settled and done. 

* * *

Anguished didn’t come close to describing him, nor angry, or betrayed. Perhaps a mix of the three, but whatever it was, Rey knew it signaled the criminally short end of their night.

“Did you know?” Ben asked, sounding nothing like the man who not a half an hour ago had whispered sweet, soothing words to her. 

“Know what?” she said slowly, taking a half-step towards him before thinking better of it. He looked like he’d been wound so tight that even the slightest movement could snap him in half. 

“Don’t, Rey,” he said, his voice hollow and tortured. “Don’t lie to me, not any more.”

“Don’t ask me a question if you’ve already made up your mind as to what my answer is,” she said defensively, suddenly afraid of what he might say next. “What happened?”

Ben shook his head slowly, an expression of hurt plastered all over his expressive features that she knew he usually took great pains to hide.

“I cannot believe I have been played for such a fool,” he whispered. “I almost want to _thank_ you, Rey, for reminding me why I have always preferred solitude over attachments. I only wish that a lifetime of loneliness had not made me so susceptible to your seductions.”

_What happened_? she thought desperately. What could have happened in such short a time to evoke such a radical change in him. 

“Ben,” she pleaded. “Tell me what happened.”

He turned on his heel to pace across the room once, and then back towards her, the line of his shoulders growing tighter with each step. 

“Fine, we’ll do this your way,” he said, stopping in front of her, closer than he had been before. His dark eyes, which she had come to think of as warm and kind the past few days, were full of rage and fire. “Your grandfather is using this engagement to try and single-handedly restart the separatist movement, and is making you the face of it, and you’re telling me you know _nothing_ of this.”

Whatever Rey had expected him to say, it was not this. 

Slowly, his words seeped into her understanding, and it dawned on her what the true purpose of her grandfather’s call this afternoon had been. 

Not to check-in, or see how she was holding up. Not even, as she had initially assumed, to goad her into some course of action. Rather, simply to find out what Ben Solo knew, if anything at all. 

Hurt forced its way into her heart when she realized it was the same thing in reverse being asked of her now.

“Am I to assume your silence is confirmation that this is true?” Ben asked. 

“The opposite,” Rey whipped back at him. “I’m in disbelief, and frankly, I don’t know why I should believe you at all.”

The last part, she knew in her heart to be a lie. There was no reason for him to invent such a tale, but she had no inclination to give him even an inch of room to work with.

“Fine, don’t. You don’t have to believe _me_ ,” Ben said, throwing up his hands, his voice edging on despair. “believe the Queen of our planet, and your friend. She’s the one who’s been dragged into this by your grandfather. And me I suppose, in asking her to sit in on what I thought to be a regular meeting of the representatives of all Mid-Rim planets. How wrong I was…”

Like pouring salt in a fresh wound, Rey thought back to their conversation by the lake on their first morning here, where she had teased him about the young Queen’s infatuation. How he had assured her so easily of her inaccurate reading. Had that been just another deception?

“And what did the young Queen say _my_ involvement was in this?” Rey bit back angrily.

“That Senator Cander of Ansion has chosen you to be the new Supreme Chancellor of a Mid-Rim _Empire_ ,” said Ben despondently. “You are really telling me he would make such a declaration without your prior knowledge?”

In that moment, Rey wished more than anything to cry mercy. To grab him by the lapels of his shirt and spill everything her grandfather had said. To tally up every fear that lived like a cancer in her head — that she would never be free of her grandfather’s chains, that even when he finally perished, he would make sure to shackle her to one of his willing henchmen, forever a prisoner of a dead man’s aspirations for power. 

But Ben, so full of hurt and rage, so passionate in his defense of his family’s longest standing fight — for the permanence and continuation of the Republic, would never listen. 

Instead, she let out an incredulous laugh, and masked fright in the only thing she knew would be stronger. Rage. 

“ _You_ are really telling me you don’t think there are powerful men in this galaxy who have used, and will continue to use me, my standing, my power, my _body_ , for their own personal gain?”

Ben’s mouth snapped shut at that, and the firm line of his shoulders dropped slightly, but he didn’t let up.

“I know your grandfather is a terrible man,” said Ben, his tone dropping to something more akin to frustration than anger. It only served to fuel Rey’s own rage. “I know he is full of dark secrets and even darker power, and maybe you don’t even know all of it. I know he is manipulative and when he wants something for himself, he can make it seem like you want it too, but Rey— ”

“You don’t have to tell me who my grandfather is!” she yelled, taking a step towards him. “He is the only parent I have ever known. His _care_ is the only constant in my life. But for your information, I was not talking about him.” 

Ben leaned dangerously towards her, his voice low and foreboding as he spoke.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Rey fought back the urge to laugh in his face. 

“ _Now_ look who is playing who for a fool.”

“Please, Rey, enlighten me as to when I have _ever_ attempted to use you for my own personal gain.”

“The night of your precious Queen Meridia’s coronation!”

Ben looked as though she had slapped him across the face, and for a moment, neither of them said a thing. The only sound in the room was the slowly rolling thunder from the skies above, gliding towards them at a threatening pace. 

His mouth was parted in shock, and his deep brown eyes looked glassy and brimming with hurt. They were so close together she could see every one of the small moles that dotted his pale face, every dark hair that had fallen out of place in the humid air. A brush of scarlet lipstick lingered on his full lips, the only remaining evidence of their momentary misstep into tenderness.

“What?” he asked in a whisper so quiet it was only by their sheer proximity to one another that she was able to hear it.

“Don’t, Ben,” she murmured back. Finally, every thought and rumination she had had about their last interaction two years ago came tumbling out of her mouth. “Coming to me with your _ridiculous_ proposal that I could be a _Junior Senator_ with you. How despite my upbringing, I had potential — if only I would let you _show me the ropes_. Be my _teacher_. It was the most patronizing thing I have ever heard in my life. I saw right through it, and right through you. You are deluding yourself if you think you are any better than _he_ is.”

For one brief, clear moment, Rey thought he might lean forward those final inches and close the distance between them once more. Confounding as it was, part of her still longed for it. 

Instead, he did the reverse and withdrew his tall frame from her immediate presence, taking two, three, slow steps backwards, his eyes never leaving her once.

Finally, he found his voice again. 

“If that’s what you heard that night, then you are more under his thumb than I ever could have imagined,” said Ben, and though the desolation in his voice was all she needed to know that he took no pleasure in saying it, it dumbfounded her. 

What other possible way was there to interpret his paternalistic, self-serving proposal? Stunned as she was, she found herself unable to find a reply. Silence stretched between them as they both accepted the stinging realization that they had nothing left to say to each other. 

With one final, intolerable shake of his head, Ben turned on his heel and walked purposefully towards the door. 

“I’m leaving in the morning,” he said, stopping at the threshold of the open door one final time. “Goodbye, Rey.”

All the heat in the room left with him as his tall frame disappeared behind the door. Rey stood solitary and unflinching as the first drops of rain fell onto the open balcony outside, and the sky lit up with a spark of lighting and a deafening clap of thunder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars References  
> [Bayonard](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bayonard_Institute_of_Higher_Education)  
> [The Clone War](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Clone_Wars)  
> [Ansion](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ansion)  
> [Junior Senator](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Junior_senator)
> 
> Senator Cander is an original character, but his name is borrowed from the [Kander Region](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kander_Region) of the planet Ansion.  
> Queen Meridia is also an original character, I don't know if I've mentioned that yet?
> 
> Drop a kudos/subscribe/come hang out on twitter @empirestriksben if you liked this chapter!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Years Ago

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: alcohol/drunkenness

Two Years Ago

Ben Solo tossed back another glass of Tsiraki, the sour sting of it somewhat diminished owing to it being either his sixth or seventh shot of the night, and glanced imploringly down at his chronometer, willing the small dial to tick just a little faster along its circular course. 

He only had to pretend to enjoy this sanctimonious spectacle for one more hour, and since he had already presented the newly crowned Queen Meridia with his family’s token of congratulation, there was nothing stopping him from sitting back and drinking just enough alcohol to make him forget how miserable his life was about to become. 

For what felt like the hundredth time that evening, his eyes landed on the sullen painted face of Naboo’s now-former Queen, Rey. 

For four years straight Ben considered this day to be the number one thing that kept him going — the thought that one day he would get to see the Palpatines’ fall from their seat of power, and he could revel in their final defeat was like a daily motivating mantra in his head. 

Somehow, instead of euphoria, a hollow feeling had crept into his heart when he first heard the news about Queen Rey’s rejection of a third term. It was as though a small hole had opened in his chest, and that hole had grown over the past few weeks as the Palace made arrangements for the transition to a new Queen, until finally, on coronation day, Ben felt like a shell of himself, as if even a feather-light tough could shatter him to pieces. 

The fact of the matter was, Rey had grown on Ben. 

He would never be able to admit it to his family, but it often felt like Rey was the only person who knew how to deal with him. His family’s response to his teenage and young adult anger issues had ranged between benign neglect and tearful surrender. 

Not Queen Rey. 

She was the only person who ever challenged him. Who yelled back just as hard as he yelled at her — harder, even. Sometimes so much so for her small frame that she’d tire herself out and have to sit back down into her plush throne, collapsing under the heavy weight of her regal clothes. She was never afraid to tell him off when he was being an ass, and question his motivations behind any long-held belief that he had never before considered. 

He had come to rely on her sharp wit and impeccable reasoning more than he would care to admit, and now that it was gone, Ben was lost. 

The new Queen was young and inexperienced, and while she seemed like she had a much more gentle temper than Rey, he knew their conversations would feel more like babysitting than strategizing. Ben was wholly unexcited for his first day back to work.

Ben spotted one of the waiters and flagged him down with a raise of his arm. His grandmother, however, had other plans, and she laid an aged, wrinkled hand on his forearm.

“My dear, don’t you think you’ve had enough?” she said quietly under the cacophony of the bustling room. Ben dropped his hand disappointedly to the table. 

“I’m _celebrating_ , Nana,” he slurred, the childhood nickname slipping out unconsciously. He felt her prying gaze on the side of his face but refused to meet it. 

“Are you?” she asked. 

Ben felt his ears heat up in his infamous flush of embarrassment. Not for the first time, he felt tremendously glad that he had decided to grow out his hair several years ago now. 

Ignoring the loaded insinuation of her last comment, Ben returned to the pudding they had been served for dessert, which had already begun to melt over his plate like a berry-flavored pond. He poked at it with his spoon absentmindedly until the sound of a chair being dragged back from table drew his attention, and he looked up to find Queen Rey — _former_ Queen Rey — standing from her seat, a barely contained frown pulling down her painted face. 

Ben was on his feet before he could think better of it, momentarily bewildered as to why no one else had risen from their seats when he remembered with increasing frustration, that there was no longer cause for such deference. 

Every pair of eyes at the long head table looked between them as they stared each other down. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw the elder Palpatine whisper something to his granddaughter, his mangled hand tugging on the long sleeve of her dress. She paid him no heed as she threw one last furious glance at Ben, turned from the guests and walked down the length of the long hall, the long cape of her voluminous emerald dress trailing behind her. 

Reckless and stupid from copious inebriation, Ben followed her. 

Weaving through the little round tables, each stuffed with mountains of food, drink, and raucous patrons, he slipped imperceptibly through the room and off to one of the Palace’s cavernous corridors to where he had seen Rey escape to. 

Ben found her two halls over, the full skirt of her dress silhouetted against the dimly lit stone, and her pale painted face pointed up towards a towering stained glass window. A single ray of moonlight, fractured through glass in hues of pink and gold, shone brilliantly over her. 

In her final moments as Queen, she looked more regal than ever. Her delicate hands clasped in front of her, her painted face the icon of nobility. He wondered abstractly if there was a rougher, less-manicured part of her, underneath all the trimmings. If so, he wished with no small amount of hope, that one day he could see it.

“Have you come to scorn like the others?” she asked, her Core worlds accent bouncing around the hall derisively. Her familiar, chiding tone brought an unsought smile to his face. Somehow, in all the chaos of the past month or so, they had barely spoken in weeks. 

_I’ve missed you_ , Ben though, his drunk addled mind betraying him.

He approached her slowly, the way one approaches a lone Shaak on a hunt, until they stood a mere two feet apart, the top of her head falling just under his chin, and Ben followed the line of her gaze to the enormous stained glass piece that formed the window.

“King Jafan,” Ben offered, examining the proud expression on the old man’s face that the artists had molded with strong, dark lines. “He presided over the —”

“Time of Suffering, I know,” Rey said, her voice thick with dejection. “Then, he won a war, united all the city-states, and built… all of this.” Ben’s eyes traveled from the window back to Rey, who shook her head sadly. “Four years on the throne, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing.”

She looked in that moment to be wise far beyond her years, as if ancient sorrows rested heavy on her shoulders. Ben loathed to think who had put them there. 

“Not _nothing_ ,” he chided, “you’ve given me a lifetime’s worth of emotional suffering. That’s something.”

“Hardly,” Rey scoffed at him, but Ben could tell some of the misery had already seeped out of her voice. 

“It’s _true_ ,” he sighed, “knowing that my Queen, the Monarch I was to serve and honor in all my endeavors, thought me to be a half-witted brute? It’s enough to keep a man awake at night.”

“Well that would certainly explain your overall demeanor during early morning briefings.”

“Early morning briefings should be outlawed. _That_ would’ve been a worthwhile decree.”

“Mm, you can take it up with your new Queen, then.”

That stopped them both up short. The new Queen. 

It had been an unusual pick, Meridia. His mother had confided in him that the whispers amongst the Court were that she would be far more agreeable to their demands, and because of it, likely stay around for a little while. Ben was not foolish enough to mention such comments to Rey though, and deigned not to touch the subject further.

“Is it such a dreadful thing, to live through peaceful times?” he asked, turning back to her previous point with a less teasing answer. 

“Perhaps not,” said Rey with an uncharacteristic shrug, “but nor is it pleasant to feel that one’s time and effort have been for naught.”

Ben shook his head. 

“Maintaining peace, in and of itself, is a commendable success,” he said. 

“My grandfather would say that you sound like your grandmother,” Rey sighed, shaking her head sadly. “Sometimes I wonder what either of us would say if we just sounded like ourselves.”

Ben considered her point for a moment, the sweet Tsiraki running through his system loosening his inhibitions just enough to close the space between them an inch, and say something that he knew in the sober light of morning, he would almost certainly regret. 

“I would say... that you should be proud of yourself,” he said, barely above a whisper, just to make sure that even in this empty hall, hundreds of feet from another living soul, she would know the words were for her and her alone. Rey’s eyes flicked from the glass mural to his, wide with caution and uncertainty. 

“Why?” she murmured, her lips, which had been painted green to match her dress, turned down into a confused frown. 

Through his intoxicated mind, Ben fought for an answer that didn’t sound laughable. Something less absurd than the truth. But in that moment, he could not find it. 

"'Cause you are smarter than most politicians twice your age and better at governing this planet than anyone else I know,” he said. 

Rey’s mask broke as she frowned up at him, her nose crinkling around her eyes, “except yourself, of course.”

“Even me,” he said, cutting her off. Her puzzled expression grew as the truth kept tumbling out of his mouth. “I’m… _awful_ at this. I use yelling as a substitute for deliberation. I consistently sacrifice the good for perfect and then fail to achieve anything at all. I’m off-putting, I’m anti-social, and most of all, I don’t —” finally, his thoughts coalesced around what was truly at the heart of all his angst the past little while — “I don’t want it. I don’t want to be a Senator anymore.”

With that one admission, it was as though an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he let out a small, breathy laugh in the cavernous hall. 

As a child he’d fled from Jedi Padawan to Senate intern, because it was the next most familiar thing. While he didn’t linger on regrets for that particular decision, he’d often wondered what else was out there if he’d expanded his horizons somewhat. 

He once met a man on Ithor who trained goats for a living. To do what exactly, Ben was never sure. But it seemed like a pleasant, jovial kind of life. One out of the spotlight, quiet, private. Peaceful. 

Or there was the summer he’d spent outside with the gardeners almost every day, so much so that he could still name every medical property of the Hsuberry tree without consulting a botanist book. 

There were a hundred, thousand possibilities beyond that, which had never even crossed his mind. Out there, somewhere, was something Ben knew he was meant to do. 

“I hate it. Honestly. And I am going to hate it so much more when you’re gone —”

“Senator Solo, please —”

“It’s true,” he said, closing the space between them another inch. “But you don’t have to go,” he said slowly, an idea forming through the fog in his head. “You could join me.”

“What?” she said with a shake of her head. 

“I’ll show you the ropes, stick around for a little while. You can start out as a Junior Senator.”

“Senator Solo, why are you saying this?” Rey asked, almost exhausted in her tone, which only served to make him more desperate. 

“Because — because, despite it all, you are whip-smart, and you care about people, and you’re thoughtful, and good, and —”

 _And I don’t hate you, not like I’m supposed to, and I don’t know what I’m going to do without you in my life because since the day I met you, I didn’t care what anyone else thought about me anymore, not even myself. Just you._

But Rey cut him off swiftly before he could say any of that. 

“Ben,” the sound of his first name falling from her lips stopped him up short. “Please. For both our sakes, stop talking before you say something you’ll regret.”

She gave him one final admonishing shake of her head, her eyes brimming with disbelief and something else, which had he been in a more sober state, Ben was sure he would’ve been able to place. 

Then, as though he had not just bared his innermost thoughts to her and pleaded for companionship, she turned and left, the train of her dress brushing past him the first and last touch between them. 

_Hollow_ , Ben thought as he stared up at the proud visage of King Jafan, silently judging him. _I feel so hollow_. 

* * *

Rain poured down in heavy sheets against Ben’s window, drowning the gardens out front in a heavy deluge of water. The sky, which normally in the summer mornings was bright and clear, dithered hopelessly in shades of grey. 

Inside the estate, Ben sat in desolate solitude at his desk, his tired eyes fixed on the small sketch he had drawn just a few short days ago. A pear tree, heavy with fruit on its spindly branches, sitting proudly in an orchard. Sharp pangs of sorrow and betrayal stung through him at the sight, yet he could not bring himself to look away. He was rooted to the spot, eyes shifting listlessly between the sketch and the torrential weather outside. 

He should have left already. 

It’s because of the rain, he told himself. That’s why he was still here.

The thunder and lightning had not ceased once throughout the night, and even without the weight of guilt and shame looming over his head, Ben doubted if he would have slept much at all. 

_Rain, and lack of sleep_ , he thought. _That’s what’s keeping me here._

Nothing to do with the debilitating weight of the threatened stability of the Republic, the pain of being hurt and hurting someone in return, and the overwhelming shame that despite it all, the thick, hot wave of _want_ still coursed through his veins. 

Nothing like that at all.

Boiling rage had left him sometime in the night. A combination of the cooling air and the lingering wine leaving his system each acted as a suppressant to his overstimulated nervous system, but it left him wrung out and on edge, in more ways than one. 

Firstly, and front of mind, was the unfortunate realization that he acted — out of justified anger and confusion — rashly. In the clear light of morning, it had become obvious that taking under consideration everything he knew about Sheev Palpatine, it was unlikely that he had relayed even the slightest details of any such plan to Rey, granddaughter or not. 

This facet of the man was something his mother had drilled into him from a young age, when Ben had been nothing more than an impressionable boy loitering about the Senate halls. 

“ _Stay away from that man, Ben_ ,” she had cautioned one time he’d accompanied her on a diplomatic trip from Coruscant to Alderaan. They had run into Palpatine lurking about the Senate halls just before they left for the transport, and Ben noted the quick way Leia had pulled them away instead of making polite conversation as she usually did.

Later, she’d sat him down on the standard diplomatic shuttle, a sad, scared look on her face, and in an unfamiliar public display of affection, pulled him in for a tight hug. She smelled like some flowery perfume and he’d leaned into the comforting, warmth of it as he listened. “ _Whatever he says, however important he makes you feel, it is a falsehood._ ”

That had been when her father was still alive, Ben recalled with a pang of sadness. There was no doubting she would’ve heard the same thing from him, and that Anakin Skywalker would say the same thing again now. 

“Palpatine’s web is expansive and coercive,” he could almost hear in his voice, “even those who think they’re playing along out of free will, never are.”

So Ben had accepted that at most, Rey was an unwitting fly, caught in the web, wings struggling to fight back. 

A delicate, exquisitely beautiful, soft fly. 

Which brought Ben’s mind around to the second reason he felt like every muscle and tendon in his body was wound painfully tight. 

Rey. 

Each place where her soft, supple body had pressed up against his still burned with the memory of her. _Other_ parts of him had taken interest as well. 

For days he had tried to ignore her long legs strutting about the estate, the curve of her shoulders peeking out from under his over-sized shirts, her small, tentative blushing smile that did wonders for his overactive imagination, and the longer he had tried to ignore it, the more his body betrayed him. He felt like a hormonal teenager again, getting turned on by the slightest brush of their skin against each other. 

It was improper — _lewd_ , even, how badly he wanted to — 

Ben groaned and dropped his head onto his desk, unable to even complete the thought without feeling like an absolute degenerate. He inhaled a deep breath of air, trying to regulate his blood flow to a more normal tempo in a floundering attempt to alleviate the aching throb of his cock, which had been valiantly trying to make its needs known for three days straight now, despite Ben’s own protestations. 

Usually, were he in the privacy of his own home, under normal circumstances, he would not have waited so long to deal with such a predicament. But something about taking matters into his own hands, here, with the cause of such carnal needs sleeping so close by, felt unseemly. 

Even now, after he had come so teasingly close to taking a step towards that release, only to squander the chance with his own hotheadedness, he refused to cross that line. 

Which brought him to the third and final reason for his melancholy. Somehow, even years later, he had not realized the level of miscommunication that had resulted on that drunken night of Queen Meridia’s coronation. 

Ben had always thought himself to be the victim of it all, of Rey’s cruel, blunt rejection. That it was out of pity for his feelings that she had chosen to not reach out in the succeeding years to make amends, or even just talk. Never could he have imagined how thoroughly he had misread her reaction. 

The thought that Rey had felt like he was trying to _use_ her, as her grandfather did, for some nefarious, selfish reason, was more than enough to cool his arousal, and if he was honest, it was the ultimate thing that held him here instead of getting in the Falcon and heading straight for Theed Royal Palace.

His grandmother’s departing advice to him weighed prominently on his mind. 

“ _Just be you, and everything will fall into place._ ”

Ben lifted his head from the table and stared at the unceasing rain lashing against the window. His eyes caught the tiny, taunting sketch and with a long-suffering sigh, he stood from his desk, his stuff joints creaking a little. Then, steeling himself to make what was almost certainly going to be an apology thrown straight back in his face, he headed out the exterior door. 

_Just be me_ , he thought as the heavens poured down on him, soaking him to the bone in seconds. 

_That’ll be easy_.

* * *

Rey lay under a mountain of heavy blankets and yet somehow she still shivered painfully against the cold air that permeated through the room and seeped into her bones. She could hardly believe that only a few hours ago she had been baking in this house, the heat a constant, choking vice around her neck as she’d adorned herself with fine silk and perfume. 

Embarrassment struck at the heart of her every time the memory of it reclaimed its spot in the forefront of her mind. In her attempt to feel more mature and confident, her naive innocence had been revealed instead.

Of course Ben Solo wouldn’t want her. 

The thought had tormented her all night, but in the end she came to the realization that it was probably for the best. Better to learn such lessons now, than spend any more time living through fanciful dreams of what might have been. What could have been. 

After all, if all men were to hurt her with false promises and mistrust, then better it to be by one she held no kind feelings for. So what if she was married off to some aging, washed-up politician of her grandfather’s choosing? Whoever he was, he would likely ask for very little. Company in his bed for the first while. A few children. Then, as time passed he would grow bored, and find companionship with some mistress, younger and perkier than she would then be. But she would still have a roof over her head, and a belly full of food, and it would still be the closest thing to freedom she had ever known.

So, through the night of frightening thunder, fitful half-awake, half-asleep dreams, bouts of muffled sobs into plush pillows, and with only her head and her own heart as consolation, Rey had made it to morning with the bitter taste of acceptance in her mouth.

The air had turned stale and uncomfortable under all the blankets, and so with a resigned sigh, she poked her head above the layers of silk throws and soft quilts and inhaled a deep breath of fresh air. Outside the window the sky had lightened considerably, as though the sun was still fighting through the thick clouds to rise, despite it all. 

And if the sun could, then so could Rey. 

With an aching creak in her stiff muscles, Rey threw the blankets off and hauled her legs over the side of the bed, the tips of her toes barely brushing the carpeted floor. 

She had discarded the long red gown last night in favor of one of the more plain nightgowns, a thin solid black piece that fell to her mid-thigh in a trim of small, fine lace. Shivering against the cool, drafty air of the ancient room, Rey wished she felt more inclined to grab one of the sweaters that _he_ had loaned her on their first morning here to cover up with. 

But the cold air was far easier to suffer than the cold sting of rejection. 

Instead, she tip-toed over to the discarded pile of clothes and plucked a matching black dressing gown and slid her arms into the wide, silk sleeves. No sooner had she tied the velvety ribbon loosely around her waist than a faint knocking sound came from somewhere through her drawing room, startling her into grabbing the nearest sharp object she could find, which happened to be a poker from the fireplace. 

Grasping the iron handle of it firmly in her shaking hands, she stepped cautiously through her bed chambers and into the drawing room, its towering shelves full of glowing blue holonovels seeming all the more ghostly in the eerie half-light of the inclement weather pushing on the windows from outside. 

A cold sweat ran through Rey as she realized the sound was coming from the door that led to the balcony. 

Shaking, and not from the cold this time, Rey approached the door with small, tentative steps, the fire-poker still raised above her head. Twenty years of learning to fear the worst, and always expect chaos before order meant that her head filled with a thousand horrible possibilities of who or what could be out there. 

Perhaps Senate officials had rained down on them in the night to drag her and Ben away for discussing Republic secrets. Worse yet, that her grandfather had somehow found out about their illicit kiss and had come for Ben’s head and to throw her in a convent. 

Bracing for the worst, Rey turned the handle and threw open the door. 

Ben Solo stood under a curtain of rain, his tall frame silhouetted starkly against the grey sky. His hair looked jet black where it was plastered in wet strands down the side of his face, the tips of his ears poking out between the dark waves. His pale complexion stood out against the dreary landscape, and accentuated the haunted look in his eyes and down-turned mouth.

A beat of silence passed between them, the deafening roar of the rain descending from the skies above and ricocheting off the stone balcony serving as the only noise between them, until finally they spoke at the same time. 

“What are you still doing here?”

“Are you going to hit me with that?”

His gaze bounced warily between her face and the sharp poker. She exhaled as the anxiety of uncertainty left her, and dropped the poker to the ground with a clatter. 

“You said goodbye,” Rey said, clutching the neckline of her dressing gown together against the wave of cold air that blew in through the open door. Partially, as well, to hold herself together for the hurt that was certain to come. “You told me you were going to leave in the morning.”

“I know,” Ben said, his voice deep enough that she could hear him over the clamoring rain, “but I couldn’t leave without explaining myself.” 

Through the layers of built up hurt and anger that stretched painfully across her heart like scar tissue, she couldn’t help but stifle a smile. Senator Ben Solo always had one more thing to say. 

“I didn’t…” Ben started and then paused again, searching for words. Finally, after a long beat, he began.

“When I spoke to you at the coronation, I was out of line. I know that. I was five sheets to the wind and for a moment I let myself forget that at best, we were nothing more than colleagues. But… that whole night I kept looking at you, and it was like I could _feel_ how upset you were. And I wanted to make it better, because that was easier than thinking about… how upset I was too.”

Rey frowned, “what did _you_ have to be upset for?”

Ben swallowed nervously and after a moment of hesitation announced, “the same thing as you.” 

A violent shiver ran through him, whether from the cold, something else, or a bit of both. Then, he continued in earnest, “I told you, Rey. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be a Senator anymore, I haven’t in some time. But the thought of having to do it without you there, defending Naboo by my side, challenging me on every thought just so I could think through my own argument, improve them if necessary… it was unbearable. And I was right. It hasn’t been the same without you, not even close. Rey, I asked you to join me as a Junior Senator — I apologize for the patronizing term, I did not invent it — with only good intentions.”

It was now so cold that his breath was coming out in visible puffs of air and his shoulders trembled with shivers, but he didn’t pause for long enough to let her invite him inside. 

“You’re stronger than you know, and you don’t deserve the life you’ve been given.”

Rey blinked back hot tears that welled under her eyes and promised to fall if he were to speak another word, clutching her hands tighter to her chest. For a moment it looked like his resolve almost slipped, and he made an halted attempt to reach for her, but at the last moment thought better of it. 

“I don’t think you knew about your grandfather’s plans with the committee, and I am sorry that I insinuated as much,” he admitted. Rey’s heart stuttered with hope, but swiftly ceased when he said, "but Rey, my first responsibility is to the Republic. I need to go stop this."

She felt herself nod in agreement, and pushing down the wave of tears that threatened to choke her, cleared her throat and said, "for what it's worth, I don’t want the position anyways."

"I know," Ben nodded solemnly, "and if it means anything at all… I don't really want to leave."

At that, Rey felt a few tears slip down her cheeks, which she wiped away quickly. The space between them couldn't have been more than two feet, but it felt simultaneously a mile and an inch. 

Without a further word to it, Ben gave her a curt bow and turned away, stepping out of her vision and back down the balcony. 

Part of Rey wanted to leave it there too. She thought of her resolution that she had come to over the course of the rainy, dreary night. The acceptance of her fate as an unloved, kept wife. One lingering question stood in the way of her sufferance, and Rey knew she would not be able to leave this place without an answer.

She stepped out onto the balcony, the cold rain immediately hitting her bare forearms and wetting her hair. Ben was already at the other end of the balcony when Rey called to him.

“Did you mean what you said?” she said over the thunderous rain. He spun back around and came striding back towards her, his eyes wide and full of some emotion she couldn't quite place, but felt that she had seen him wear once before. 

“Rey, get back inside, you’re barely dressed —”

“Did you mean it?” she repeated, cutting him off as he came towards her, pressing close as if to shield her from the onslaught of rain with nothing but his tall, broad frame. “What you said before you kissed me,” Rey continued, “that you wanted me… because I’m me.”

He glanced down at her puzzled, his pink lips parted in surprise, and for a moment Rey thought he would give her an answer right then and there. 

“If I tell you, will you get back inside,” he said, hammering the point as though he hadn’t himself been standing underneath the cold rain for several long minutes. Rey sighed but nodded in acquiescence, letting his hand fall to the small of her back, the tips of his fingers the only source of warmth under the elements as he gently guided her back down the slippery balcony and into the comparatively warm, and at the very least dry drawing room. 

Ben shut the door behind him, and the tension in Rey’s head eased as it finally quieted the rain to a dull patter. A violent shiver passed through her, her teeth clattering as the silk robe, now freezing from the water, clung uncomfortably to her skin. That same look passed over Ben’s face, the one she couldn’t quite place, and he searched around for something, evidently finding it a little ways across the room. In a few long strides he reached one of the couches — the one she had slept on the other night — and pulled from it the throw blanket she had slept under and discarded there.

In little time he was back in her space, wrapping the thin blanket around her shaking shoulders, with no care as to how much more drenched he was than her. Finally his hands left her and came to rest at his sides, clenching and unclenching, the way he had done at dinner when remembering the cut and the shock. As though the very touch of her had scalded him too. 

“I meant it,” he whispered, his eyes darting around the room to gaze upon anything except her face. Rey, on the other hand, did the opposite. Her eyes raked over his face in longing aspiration, searching for any sign of deception, any assurance that he spoke true. 

As it often was between her and Ben, there was nothing that either of them said or did to confirm the conviction in his admission, but rather they relied on some unnamed instinct to liaise the truth. As if something existed outside of her, around and between them. Something alive, sentient even. Whatever it was, when Rey tapped into it she sensed for certain that no falsehood lay in his confession. She had been wrong. 

Ben Solo _did_ want her. 

Rey felt warm all over, like a brilliant light beamed outwards from her heart had dried all the rain droplets from her skin and clothes, and doused her in a golden ray of sunlight. 

He wanted her. 

It was such a suggestive, indelicate admission, and so uncharacteristically forthcoming, that Rey knew it had taken great pains for him to admit it, to admit all of it, really. He had that look on his face still though, and something about it frightened her, not because of what dangers it held, but what forbidden treasures.

Finally, a memory from years ago resurfaced, and Rey realized where she recognized it. 

One time, Ben had arrived unusually late to one of their regular briefings, wringing his hands and looking all the worse for wear. He quickly explained that a medical droid had been sent to his grandmother’s home that morning after she had taken a bad fall out in her garden. 

_“She’s not young anymore and I —_ ” he trailed off as his bottom lip trembled ever so slightly for a moment, and eyes filled with the kind of grief that doesn’t want to believe in itself. “ _Your Majesty, I will admit I am —_ ” 

“ — worried,” Rey said, coming back to the present. “You’re… worried about me.”

Vocalizing it seemed to confirm the validity, not just for her, but for him too as he deflated and raised his arms in a limp attempt at a shrug.

“Of course I’m _worried_ about you,” he said, as if it should be the most obvious thing in the galaxy. “Rey, you show up, after a cryptic call changes plans about me picking you up in the Falcon, with bags packed full of completely functionless clothes, joking about eating ration packs for breakfast like that’s a regular occurrence for you. I find you sleeping on couches in the library instead of your bedroom, and it feels like you’re on the verge of tears at any minute. What am I supposed to think?”

Rey felt tears threatened to spill over again. She hated how much she cried. For so long she had avoided any emotional confrontations for that reason exactly. Crying usually made her feel vulnerable, like her emotions could be turned against her so quickly. 

Part of her still feared that now.

“Maybe I don’t want you to worry about me,” she said. If Ben Solo wanted for her, and worried for her, then it would be too difficult — nigh impossible even, to ever let him go once this week was over. 

“Well what do you want, Rey?” he challenged. “Because I can’t figure it out. Sometimes, it feels like you want me to leave you alone, and keep as much distance between us as possible, and then you turn around and meet me for dinner wearing… wearing,” he seemed to be at a loss for words recalling her outfit the previous evening, “ _that_ dress, and talking about how you wish you could be someone else. I just don’t understand why —”

“ — because maybe, one time in my whole life, I just wanted to indulge in a guilty pleasure,” Rey blurted out and wished, almost immediately, that she had not said it.

Ben points to himself with one long finger. 

“And what, I’m your… guilty pleasure?” he asks incredulously. “So that’s what you want, you want me to… pretend this is real,” Ben continued, taking a purposeful step towards her, “like we’re just two regular people,” he took another step closer, “and this week really is to… what, evaluate me?” he stepped right into her space then. Closer than in the orchard, and more confident than on the balcony after dinner.

“Did I get it right, Rey?” he said, “you want me to try to please you?”

Even after the rain shower, the musk of pinewood clung to his skin, and she could see his heartbeat pulse rapidly through a strong vein in his neck. With a thick swallow, Rey looked up at him through her eyelashes and whispered, “yes.”

Ben’s eyes searched her face indescribably. He was silent for so long, too long. 

“Oh kriff, Ben, just forget the whole —”

The rest of her sentence died in her throat as she was cut off by the firm, urgent press of Ben Solo’s lips against her for the second time in as many days. 

One of his massive hands slid to the back of her neck, cradling the base of her head and tangling through her hair, the other wrapping around her waist to pull her flush against the long, hard line of his body. Ben, desperate and directive, backed her right up against one of the holo-shelves and claimed her lips for him alone. 

It was nothing like their first kiss. Deep, where that had been tentative. Biting where it had been soft. And instead of leaving her agreeably satisfied, it left her hungering for more.

To her absolute dismay, he pulled back an inch and brought his hand around to tip her chin up with two fingers, one eyebrow cocked in a silent question. 

“Good?” he whispered.

Rey answered by fisting her hands into the front of his shirt and pulling him back in for more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars References  
> [Hsuberry Tree](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hsuberry_tree)  
> [Chronometer](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chronometer)  
> [Shaak](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shaak)  
> [Tsiraki](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tsiraki)  
> [King Jafan/Legends](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jafan)  
> [Time of Suffering](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Time_of_Suffering)
> 
> I announced this on [my twitter](https://twitter.com/empirestriksben) but this week you'll get TWO updates as a treat for me not being able to post this on Saturday. As a fun aside, I also posted the first chapter of my new two-shot, an a/b/o downton abbey au titled Yes, My Lord. Check it out [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698931/chapters/62397580), but please do note the tags and feel free to DM me if you have any questions before reading it!
> 
> Drop a kudos or a comment if you liked this chapter!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come here,” she called, beckoning him forward, every nerve begging for attention, “I won't know what I want until you start touching me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: sexual content.

In the course of their acquaintance, Rey had considered Ben Solo to be many things. 

A subordinate — a colleague, if she was being more generous. A rival, _enemy_ even, on occasion. A know-it-all. A thorn in her side. An absolute ass. But never, in her wildest dreams, did she think she would tack onto that list —

A tender lover. 

His lips stayed on hers as he pressed his long fingers under the bare skin of her thighs and pulled her up against him. Her feet left the ground and for a moment she felt weightless in the air, until her legs wrapped around the only solid thing she could find purchase on — Ben’s tree trunk of a waist. 

He groaned into her mouth as the movement brought them flush against each other, and he tightened one arm underneath her to hold her steady. The silk fabric of her short nightgown rode up to her waist leaving the thin layer of her underwear as the only barrier between the warm jut of his hip and the space between her legs that ached for his touch. 

Ben’s lips trailed down to press hot, open-mouthed kisses against the line of her neck; the tip of his long nose—still cold from the deluge of rain—nuzzled underneath her jaw, tickling the soft skin and eliciting a surprisingly aroused reaction from her. Almost unconsciously, she ground her hips into him in search of relief. 

As she moved, he backed her fully into the tall shelf and returned her desperate attempts at relief with purposeful, slow thrusts of his hips against her. 

A soft moan fell from her lips, and she tried to muffle it into his damp hair, but it was too late. 

Taking her very obvious pleasure as a cue to keep going, Ben continued to push his hips against her with just the right amount of pressure, slowly increasing his pace until they were rutting against each other in the drawing room with little care for how obscenely loud they were being. 

It was an exquisite feeling, unlike anything she’d ever experienced, but even with the mounting pleasure building in her abdomen, Rey longed for more. His clothes were soaked through where they pressed against her, and it couldn’t be comfortable for him either. 

Besides, Rey wanted Ben out of them for other reasons as well. 

“Can we go to bed?” Rey asked breathlessly. Ben pulled back slightly, searching her face in disbelief. 

“What?” she asked, suddenly a little self-conscious. 

“You don’t even know, do you,” Ben said, shaking his head. 

Before she had a chance to find out what it was exactly that she did not know, Ben pulled her off the bookshelf, and walked them towards the bedroom, still cradling her in his arms and pressing fervent kisses along her jaw and down her neck. 

Although the immediate pressure between her legs eased somewhat, her eyes fluttered shut at the pleasure that tingled from every place his lips touched her, spreading outwards to the tips of her fingers and toes. 

She cupped his cheek gently, his skin steadily warming under her ministrations, and as she slowly blinked her eyes open she realized that they were in her bedroom, standing right at the edge of her large four-poster bed.

It felt like they were on the edge of something else too. 

A point of no return. 

Rey’s heart pounded hard and hot at the thought of what was waiting for them on the other edge of the cliff. 

They fell onto the bed together, Rey’s back dropping down on the cushioned surface below. Ben clambered on top of her, close enough that the long, taut line of his body was still pressing against her in every delicious way she wanted, but not so heavy that he crushed the air out of her. That work, he left to his lips and fingers, which trailed across her collarbones and down her sides, knocking the wind out of her with every graze of his teeth against her tender skin. 

“Wait,” he said, pulling back suddenly, his eyes suddenly wide in fear. He sat up off the bed, and Rey propped herself up on her elbows with alarm. 

Ben rushed quickly to the door, shutting it with a click, and slid the lock over with one swift movement. 

“Don’t want that damn droid walking in on us again,” he explained, jogging back towards her in his rain-soaked dark clothes. He looked like he was about to say something else, but the words never came. 

Instead, he swallowed thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as his eyes dragged across her body with a heated stare. 

Rey looked down at herself in surprise, realizing that as she lay splayed out on the bed in front of him with her thighs parted, and the lace hem of her black silk nightie just covering the space between her legs, she supposed that she could well admit that she looked alluring. Racy, even. 

A sudden flush of embarrassment hit her again, and she quickly closed her legs and tried to tug down her nightgown, but before she could, Ben’s hands were on her. 

“No,” he growled, holding her wrist with one of his massive hands. Rey had always thought herself to be a more athletic build, not at all petite like some of the aristocratic ladies who pranced around the Palace. But next to Ben she felt downright dainty. 

He gently rubbed the inner side of her wrist with the pad of his thumb and laid his other hand just above her knee. Rey’s hips lifted off the bed for a moment at the surprising touch, and he slid his hand further up her thigh in a move she assumed was trying to be comforting, but only resulted in stoking the flames within her further. 

“Clothes,” she said in a strangled cry. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

He nodded, and needing no further instruction, ripped the buttons of his tunic from their holes and threw the soaked garment to the ground. His shoes followed, and then his shirt. His bare chest she had seen once already, that first night on the balcony, and her cheeks warmed at the thought of her activities that evening, but when he pulled the sodden trousers off, revealing miles of long, toned legs, Rey realized that this was the most either of them had seen of each other’s bodies. 

Only a pair of navy blue shorts stood between Rey and his entirely naked body, although the hard length of him tenting outwards in a long, defined line left so little to the imagination, that he may as well have been nude. Rey’s body shuddered with need and a small wiggling sense of doubt. 

Ben looked to be big all over. 

“We don’t have to,” Ben swallowed and took a deep calming breath. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want —”

“Come here,” she called, beckoning him forward, every nerve begging for attention, “I won't know what I want until you start touching me.”

  
Ben responded with one quick nod, and then climbed back up on the bed, looping his strong arms around her middle to pull her up and over onto the rows of pillows at the head of the bed. He waited for her to settle against the plush cushions, and as she did her legs fell apart, leaving a space wide enough for him to kneel in between. 

With a final look to check that she was alright, and comfortable — which seemed ridiculous as it felt to Rey like she had never truly known comfort and pleasure until this moment — his hands finally returned to her touch-starved body. Somehow, she sensed they would not leave her again until he had wrung out exquisite and unimaginable pleasures from her.

Ben slid one hand tantalizingly up her thigh and past the crux of her legs, snaking up the tight sheath of her silk nightgown to rest in the middle of her chest. As he leaned in to capture her lips in a fierce, open-mouthed kiss, his hand slid just a few inches to the left to rest over the soft, sensitive skin of her breast, and Rey gasped into his mouth as he began to tease his fingertips over the sensitive bud of her nipple, gently tweaking it between his fingers until it stiffened into a hard peak. The sensitive skin rubbed gratifyingly against her nightgown, until even the soft silk and the pads of his soft fingers were too much, and she let out a small moan of pain. 

He slowed down, palming at her breast in loose strokes instead, and pressed gentle kisses down her neck. 

“You’re so sensitive,” he murmured against her skin, which had started to feel as hot as the humidity from yesterday had made her feel. 

“Is that bad?” she asked nervously, and he met her gaze with wide eyes, as though she had said something positively ridiculous. 

“No, Rey,” he shook his head. “It’s… it’s _not_ bad.”

“Okay,” she nodded, and then quieter added, “I’ve never done this before.”

Her cheeks heated at the admission, and she hoped—prayed— it wouldn’t make him want to stop. Instead, Ben’s cheeks flushed pink, and to her absolute shock, a sheepish look came over him. 

“Neither have I.”

“Oh,” Rey whispered. 

“Is that surprising?” Ben asked with a quizzical frown.

Rey considered it. Ben was objectively striking, if a little unconventionally attractive. But even that aside, he was strong and reserved and intelligent, not to mention wealthy, powerful, and the sole heir to an influential family. 

“Yes,” she said without reservation. 

Both his eyebrows shot up to his hairline and a smug smile lit up his face. 

“Well that was fast —”

“ — _shhh_ ,” Rey said, pressing a kiss against the soft curve of his mouth to urge him back to his earlier caresses, which he resumed swiftly, his other hand coming to rest at the top of her knee. 

Ben kissed down her collarbones to the swell of her breasts, grabbing the collar of her night gown with his teeth and pulling it to the side until her as-yet untouched nipple was showing. Wasting no further time, he laved his tongue over the hard peaked surface, sucking and grazing it with his teeth until she whimpered from the over-stimulation. He changed tactics to kiss at it with gentle strokes, until she whispered quiet pleas for more again, and resumed the rougher strokes, winding her back up again in an infuriating rhythm. 

This continued, Ben switching back and forth between her breasts, until her hips were canting off the bed, and she could feel wetness soaking through her small black underwear. 

Finally, his hand moved from its position on her knee, squeezing it comfortably, to slide down her body, pushing her further into the mattress and her nightgown further up her hips until the tips of his fingers grazed over the hem of her underwear.

“I need you to tell me what feels good,” he said, his voice thoroughly wrecked as he mumbled into the crook of her neck. 

“Mhmm,” was all Rey could manage to say before his fingers slipped underneath her panties, over the rough hair that grew there, and clumsily found the bundle of nerves at the top. 

“Good,” she cried out in pleasure, her hips pressing her clit into the pads of his fingers and rocking with abandon. “That feels good.”

Needing no further encouragement, Ben began to rub tantalizing circles over the slippery, swollen nub, and Rey’s neck arched back into the piles of pillows with pleasure, her eyes squeezing shut. Even in the darkness, Rey could tell by the gentle rocking of the bed that Ben had begun to rut his hips into the mattress between her spread legs, as though he was driven mad by the mere sight of her. 

That knowledge was almost enough to send her over the edge, and may have been well been the thing to do so, had he not simultaneously decided to try rubbing her clit with his thumb instead, and utilizing his long, thick fingers to nudge at the entrance of her gaping, wet entrance. 

As the tip of his forefinger slid just inside her, Rey came with a cry, her eyes rolling back into her head, and her body clenching around the welcome intrusion of his finger. Her legs shook with electrifying pleasure and she rode the wave of bliss with the tips of his fingers still pushing against and inside her, until her peak began to fall, and the over-stimulation was too much. 

“Ben,” she gasped, her chest heaving. Luckily, she didn’t need to say more for him to get the picture and pull his fingers away from her over-sensitized body. Her underwear snapped back in place and she cried out with another shout, as the fabric pressed rough and uncomfortably against her swollen clit. 

“Too much,” she groaned, and without thinking, pulled them down around her thighs, relishing in the cool, open air around her. It wasn’t until she heard Ben let out a guttural moan that she realized what she had done. 

Rey’s eyes flew open to find him staring at the space between her thighs, now completely exposed. Nervousness coursed through her, mixed in with the pleasure that continued to stream through her veins, but then she glanced down just slightly and realized that Ben’s hand had dived into the waistband of his boxers and he was touching himself with long, measured strokes. 

She had thought he would’ve been repulsed by the sight of her, sticky and wet and flushed open like this, but it seemed to have the opposite effect instead, and he began to pick up the pace. 

Suddenly, Rey didn’t want to leave it up to her imagination anymore to know what he looked like all over, and she reached forward with one limp hand and tugged the waistband of his boxers down around his wrist. 

Ben’s thick cock, engorged almost to the point of being purple, sprung forward. Rey had never seen a man’s cock before, and once she got over the initial shock, she found the sight of it to be extremely arousing. A bead of wetness clung to the thick, rounded tip of it, and it curved down in a long shaft into a thick base, and a swollen ball sack swinging heavy underneath. 

It was so thick in diameter Rey had no clue how it was ever supposed to fit inside her, but the thought of how wet and open he would have to get her in order to do so made her want to try even more. 

She wondered absentmindedly if she was loose enough to take him now. 

While that was a mouth-watering thought, what she really wanted more than anything at that moment — was to touch Ben the way he had touched her. 

With a shaking hand she reached forward and bumped her fingers against the swollen tip. She barely had time to register the incredible duality of its softness and hardness before he was suddenly crying out, and a creamy white substance spilled out over her fingers and onto the black silk of her nightgown below. 

Ben groaned as his hand flew rapidly along his shaft, working himself through the orgasm that had seemed to startle him as much as her, until finally, his strokes slowed, and the last few drops of come landed in streaks across her silk-wrapped chest. He held himself loosely as his chest heaved with deep breaths. Finally, their eyes locked on each other’s again. 

Despite the release they had finally both achieved, Rey found Ben’s eyes still wide and brimming with desire, and her body quaked with the thought that he wanted more. 

* * *

Ben felt absolutely mortified as he came down from his unexpected peak. 

If he was to give himself some modicum of credit, it had now been several days since he’d last gotten off—the last three of those a series of slow, torturous days spent being turned on over and over again with no hope of relief from the most gorgeous woman he’d ever known—who also happened to be his fiance. 

Still, by his standards, he had come in an embarrassingly short amount of time. 

By some miracle, he had been able to fumble his way through enough sensual, teasing strokes over the most sensitive parts of Rey’s body that he was able to bring her to what appeared to be a satisfying orgasm, but as he scanned over her lithe, flushed body, from her blushed, freckled cheeks, to her pert breasts, and finally to her pink, wet cunt, Ben realized he wanted her to experience even more. 

“Can I… can I try something?” he panted, his heart rate already picking up at the thought of what he wanted to do. 

“Mmm,” Rey hummed, the rise and fall of her chest slightly. “What is it?”

Ben settled himself lower down on the bed until his chest lay flat against the bed and his face was perched in between her legs. 

“Can I taste you?”

He watched Rey sink her teeth into her bottom lip, and a high-pitched keening noise emitted from low in her throat, and a babble of words came out of her mouth. All he caught was, “ — should be illegal for you to say that —”

Ben felt a laugh bubble up and he pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. 

“Then you should have decreed such a thing,” he whispered softly to her, adding, “ _my Queen_.” Rey moaned and sunk deeper into the mattress, her hips thrusting pitifully forwards. “Is that a yes?” 

Rey paused for a moment before finally gasping, “yes.”

Finally, Ben let himself relax into the bed, and give all his attention and focus to kissing a line of warm, wet kisses down Rey’s thighs. As he got closer to the warm space between her legs, the scent of her sweet and heady down here, he darted his tongue out to lick at whatever wetness he found that had dripped down her thighs. He took his time cleaning up every inch of her, until she was vibrating for more and her cunt glistening with new wetness. 

Only then did he finally press the flat pad of his tongue against her clit. 

His head felt like a delicious fog had seeped into it at the taste of her sweet release, and somewhere through the blur he heard a loud cry, and Rey’s hands slid into his hair, which had finally begun to dry from the rain. Ben poked his head up to check that she was still alright, but he barely got an inch away before her hands pushed his head back down and his lips sealed fully over that tight, sensitive bud. 

Rey’s hips bucked off the bed, and Ben laid one hand gently on her waist to soothe her. Unrelenting, he kissed and licked at her clit until it felt swollen and throbbing under his tongue, and only then did he lick down further, exploring more of the soft, sweet skin until the tip of his tongue slipped into her tight cunt. 

Her fingers gripped his hair even tighter, and pushed his face harder against her, her hips stuttering in small thrusts against his tongue, shoving it a little deeper into her. Ben had no clue if what he was doing was right or normal or good, but he remembered that Rey was just as inexperienced as he was, and whatever he was doing seemed to be good for her. 

His spent cock was valiantly trying to fight its way back up, the way the sensitive head rubbed uncomfortably on the sheets just on the wrong edge of pain, so instead he focused on pushing through the ache that had begun in his jaw, and turned his attention solely to making Rey feel good again.

With long licks against her and deep inside her, Rey became more and more frantic, her thighs squeezing either side of his head, and her fingers scraped over his scalp. She was louder this time, guttural moans and sobs falling from her lips easily.

Whereas last time she had been almost shocked into silence by her orgasm, this time she practically screamed into her pillow as she came hard against his tongue. He licked all of it up with small, gentle strokes, until even that seemed to be too much stimulation, and her fingers tugged at his hair to pull him off. 

Rey was a glorious sight. 

From her flushed skin, to her mussed up hair. The blissed-out, slack expression on her face. The streaks of his come staining her little black nightgown. Her milky white thighs open and limp with pleasure. Her glistening pink cunt, still throbbing from the aftershocks. 

_I did that_ , Ben’s clouded brain supplied helpfully. 

Ben sat back on his legs, his hands on his knees to brace himself, and sucked in deep, slow breaths, until his heart rate finally began to come down to a more normal tempo. Rey too seemed to have calmed down, her chest slowly rising and falling with the slow beat of her heart, her eyelids shut, lashes fluttered softly against her cheeks. 

As he leaned closer, crawling a little ways up the bed, careful not to touch her suddenly, Ben realized she was in fact, asleep. 

He huffed a small breath, shaking his head a little. Who was he to judge, really? When Rey had touched his cock, so sweet and full of curiosity, he thought he might just pass out too from how hard he came. 

Gingerly, Ben crawled off the bed, his half-hard cock finally tamping down as he left the warm cocoon that they had created underneath the covered bed and hit the cool air outside it. 

He searched around for something to clean them up with, finally resting on what he recognized as one of his soft shirts that he had loaned her crumpled on the floor. Picking it up, he returned with it to the little warm, dim alcove of the bed, and as gently as he could wiped any wetness that had leaked out around her inner thighs and onto the bed, and finally, cleaned the come off her nightgown.

Thankfully, she did not stir, not even as he tugged the blankets over her body and up to her chin, and pulled three sides of the curtains round the bed shut, leaving only the side that he would climb out of open. 

He was about to climb off the bed for the last time when Rey mumbled something against her pillow that sounded an awful lot like his name, and his heart stuttered in his chest as he looked down at Rey's pink cheeks, and her expression, soft and calm, so unlike the other day when he had walked in on her sleeping on the couch. 

Rey sleepily sneaked one hand out from underneath the covers and wrapped her fingers around his wrist in a loose, tired hold. 

“Stay,” she mumbled barely above a whisper. 

Ben’s heart seized uncomfortably at the request. On the one hand, he had already wasted far too much time hanging about the estate when what he really needed to do was get back to Theed as soon as possible and intervene in what was certainly the biggest political mistake of the century. 

At the same time, he hadn't lied to Rey out on the balcony. He didn't _want_ to leave then, and certainly not now.

In fact, there was some small part of him, that steadily-growing beast in his chest, that balked at the thought of considering what had transpired between them a _waste of time_. 

_Who cares_? That primal, instinctual part of him whispered. _The Republic can wait. Can she_ _?_

Ben considered it further. In a high-speed freighter, Theed was merely a couple hours away from the Varykino estate, and the committee meeting was not yet for another day and a half. 

But here, now. Could he ask Rey to put off this moment? Could he put it off himself?

Ben couldn't deny that he too felt that every nerve of his body was humming with a sharp, vulnerable edge, and he knew if he thought for too long about the fact that another living human had looked at and touched his naked body, the mortification might just kill him.

Ben shook his head from the thought, and turned back to Rey. Watching the steady rise and fall of her chest underneath the blankets worked to calm his own heartbeat, the carnal, physical part of him aching to be close to her, curl into bed and hold her softly against him. Claim this for theirs, and theirs alone. 

The Republic, the committee, the other Senators, Queen Meridia. They could all wait. 

Ben yanked the last curtain shut around them, throwing their small cocoon into full darkness. Blindly, he felt for the top of the covers and slipped underneath them, finding Rey’s warm, lithe body easily against the cool sheets. She curled towards him, their arms tangling under the heavy blankets and the precarious, heavy air, which threatened to collapse if anyone were to challenge it. 

Blissfully, there was no one around to threaten it, and so Ben let his weight fall back against the pillows. Rey’s head tucked underneath his chin and he closed. He eyes against the darkness to wait patiently for consequence and repercussions to bear their teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we finally got to the important stuff -- Ben and Rey fucking on Naboo. 
> 
> Don't think there were any specific Star Wars references in this chapter. The next chapter I'm hoping to be done Tuesday/Wednesday. Drop a kudos or comment if you liked this chapter!!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heat stirred low in her abdomen and chipped away at her doubts about whether Ben would want to have sex with her again. He looked ready to devour her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter my beta reader called "jarringly wholesome".

When Rey awoke, it felt as though she’d been dunked in a bath of thick honey, or pure, unrefined sunshine, as every limb felt warm and loose, her mind a vaporous haze, swimming lazily through consciousness.

At first, she wasn’t entirely sure that she had in fact opened her eyes, as darkness clung to her vision even a mere two inches in front of her face. 

The only clue as to where she was and why she had fallen into such a sudden and satisfying sleep, was the warm weight beside her in bed, and the reassuring scent of pinewood. 

_Oh yes,_ she remembered belatedly, _they’d had sex_.

At least, she was fairly certain what they had done counted as sex. Although her handmaidens had often bickered back and forth about whether such and such experience counted, Rey felt quite strongly that after his fingers and tongue had wrung two orgasms from her in under an hour, she could reasonably say that she and Ben Solo had sex. 

Not that she would be telling anybody about the encounter in such a way that would force her to recount such specific details, but still, for her own mind, it was a nice thought. 

Nice too was the warm, strong chest that served as her pillow, and Rey nuzzled ever so slightly into the soft surface, raising one hand to glide over his wide torso and broad chest. 

She wondered absentmindedly exactly how and why a politician like Ben found the time to exercise enough to produce such results, but she found no objection to it, instead remembering the thrilling feeling of being carried into bed and covered by his massive, warm body. 

She purred against his chest and squeezed her thighs together as each pleasant, arousing memory came back to her bit by bit. His tongue inside her was her favorite, she decided, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it would feel just as pleasing to have other parts of him inside her too. 

She pulled herself up slowly on her forearms and met his gaze for what she realized with a drop of embarrassment, was the first time since passing out after her second orgasm. 

As she slowly adjusted to the darkness she could tell that he was awake and alert, and his eyes roamed over her face, an inkling of that same worried look hiding in the corner of their amber depths. 

“Hello,” he whispered gently, rubbing her shoulder. “Did you sleep alright?” 

Rey opened her mouth to say, _yes, most agreeably,_ and ask _what wonderful, pleasurable things they could try next, please?_

But shyness caught her up short. 

Maybe he didn’t want to do more than what they had done already?

After all, he’d already had her splayed out underneath him, willing and pliant, and easily could have woken her up for a few more rounds, but he’d chosen instead to tuck her body under the blankets and let her snooze on his chest for who knew how long. 

Maybe that was all he wanted. 

Before she had the chance to find out, her stomach decided at that moment to release an almighty grumble and Ben’s mouth quirked up into a teasing smile. 

“Are you _always_ hungry?” he asked. 

“Not _always_ ,” she bit back, her voice almost laughably wrecked from sleep and other activities. “But in my defense, I haven’t eaten anything since last night.” 

“Hmm,” Ben hummed mischievously, “I could _not_ say the same for myself.”

Rey frowned at that. 

Why would he mock her about the fact that he’d felt well enough to get up this morning and have breakfast while she had laid in bed wallowing and —

 _Oh_.

“Oh,” Rey said, realizing the double-meaning of what he’d said. She felt her cheeks blush furiously, and she tried to hide her face in the crook of his neck, “I’m sorry.”

Ben let out a strangled noise from the back of his throat. 

“Please, Rey,” he said, running one soft, warm hand down her spine to rest just above her ass, “don’t be sorry.” 

She poked her head back up and he took the opportunity to press a gentle, quick kiss over her lips. “Let me get you some food.”

Ben extracted himself from their tangled embrace, promising sandwiches and other tasty things to munch on at his return, and pulled open the curtain that ran along the side of her bed. Light shone in from outside, as the rain had finally started to clear and the sun fought to shine brightly through its final hours of the day. 

He picked a wet heap of something off the floor, which when he shook out with a loud thwack, she recognized to be his trousers from earlier. They hadn’t dried in the slightest from where he’d discarded them. 

“Oh! You gave me a pair, wear those” Rey reminded him. “They’re beside the suitcases over there,” she said, pointing to where the bags had been left overturned around a pool of lingerie. 

She grinned at the view of his ass cheeks swaying slightly as he followed the direction to where she had indicated, and the way his cock, which was still impressive in length even soft, swung between his legs as he went. He plucked the pants from their spot beside the suitcases, and Rey didn’t fail to notice how his eyes roamed over the silk and lace pieces as he tugged them up his legs to rest snugly over his hips. 

From across the room, his eyes flicked from the lingerie back to her, dark and heated. Evidently, Ben seemed to enjoy the sight of her in them as much as she had come to enjoy wearing them. 

Heat stirred low in her abdomen and chipped away at her doubts about whether Ben would want to have sex with her again. He looked ready to _devour_ her. 

“Lunch, please,” she teased. “In bed?”

Ben broke off the half-step he had started making towards her and nodded slowly. Finally, he turned away, unlocked the door and left, shutting it quietly behind him. 

Rey flopped back onto the bed, a stuttering breath easing out of her as the image of his burning stare lingered behind her closed eyelids. 

She wanted to be ready for him when he came back. 

She sat up and clamored off the bed. She dragged her hand down her chest, her fingers grazing over the hard, caked-on remnant of Ben’s come across her stomach. He must have cleaned them both up once she’d fallen asleep, as the space between her thighs felt less sticky and uncomfortable than she would’ve thought she’d feel. 

Another pleasant surprise was the lack of pain she felt, although she supposed it was possible they didn’t do anything that could’ve caused such lingering pain. Regardless, she couldn’t recall a time, even amongst the handful of orgasms she had given herself, when she felt so exquisitely good before. 

Her legs shook a little as she tip-toed over to the pile of lingerie, slipping off the black, stained nightgown and taking a look at her options. 

Her eyes roamed all over for the possibilities, spotting red stockings with a garter belt attached, pink frills and translucent tulle, thongs and strappy bras — it was all more overwhelming than sensual, and she wasn’t sure which of it Ben would like the most. 

Finally, her eyes landed on a matching bra and underwear set, delicately woven in a soft pink lace. Compared to the chest wraps she usually donned, they were completely non-functional, and she knew her nipples would easily poke through the delicate fabric, and her rear would be mostly visible. But something about them seemed perfect. 

Ben wouldn’t be able to leave them on this time, as he had with the nightie. They would have to be peeled off, inch by inch, slowly until she was bare beneath him. 

The core of her ached with the thought, and without wasting any time, Rey stepped into the underwear, tugging them up to her waist, and shrugged the bra over her shoulders and underneath her breasts. As she caught a look of herself in the mirror on her way back to the bed, she couldn’t help but notice how the soft, unlined nature of the set accentuated how naturally perky she was, as well as her round, tight rear. 

Rey quickly threw the comforter off the bed, rolling it into a ball and tossing it off to the side. Then, she fixed the sheets so they were tight to the mattress, and fluffed up the pillows so they stood flat against the headboard. 

Finally, she climbed back up onto the large bed, and waited, her legs crossed, and hands folded in her lap, for Ben to return. 

* * *

Ben had never made a sandwich faster in his entire life. 

Butter slapped carelessly onto bread, cold cuts and cheese hastily strewn between slices, a jagged cut down the middle to separate the halves. He guzzled water while he busied himself in her kitchen, exhausted and dehydrated from his _exercise_ this morning, and poured a pitcher of it to bring back to her as well, piling it all on a tray to bring back. 

The contents of the tray rattled as he made his way out the kitchen and across the drawing room, until he finally pushed open the door of her bedroom with his shoulder, and was met with an extremely welcome sight. 

Rey was sitting as demure and quiet as he had ever seen her in the center of her bed, propped up high against her pillows. Evidently, she had changed, and her tight, tanned body was now clothed in a tiny pink bra and matching lace underwear. His cock, which had already begun to twitch back to attention since she'd given him that heated, promising look as she’d asked for lunch, stood fully at attention now. 

Rey raised one eyebrow, beckoning him back to bed. 

He tried to make it look like he was not quite literally to her, and as gently as he could, he set the tray down on the bed, presenting it for her approval. 

“Delicious,” she smiled, picking up one of the halves and taking a large bite. She hummed around the food as she chewed, and Ben took the opportunity to fully appreciate this new look she had delivered to him. 

The soft pink lace matched the particular shade of her tits and her clit perfectly, as if they were taunting him by being the very thing covering up both those parts of her body. 

Seemingly indifferent to his struggle, Rey happily munched on the quick sandwich he’d made, burning through the first half and steadily making her way through the second. 

“How did you find Threepio to make it this fast,” she asked around a bite. 

Ben, distracted by admiring her long, freckled legs and the enticing v-shape that her underwear made over her hips, mumbled, “oh, I just made it.”

He widened his eyes and glanced back up at Rey just as she swallowed hard around the bite of food, blinking curiously up at him. 

“Ben,” she said slowly. “Your droid has been making us all the other food — right?”

“Uhhm,” Ben blanked. 

Part of him wanted to tap into his political acumen, wiggle his way out of telling her the truth. Deflect, obfuscate, turn it into a joke, whatever he needed to do to make her forget what the original question was entirely. 

But this was Rey, and she’d see right through him. 

He wouldn’t lie. 

“Not _exactly_.”

"Ben!" Rey's jaw dropped and she looked down at the last couple bites of sandwich in her hand. Her wide eyes glinted in bewilderment, and it looked like she was mentally assessing each time they'd shared a meal together. Finally she said, "Why?"

"I don't know," he said, rubbing his fingers over his temple. "That first morning, you assumed it was Threepio that made breakfast and I didn't know how to correct you, and then I let it spiral and I —" 

Ben stopped short as the tips of Rey's fingers landed lightly on his lips, and he looked down stunned into her eyes.

"Ben," she whispered and leaned a few inches closer to him. 

His eyes traced over every freckle that dotted her nose and pink cheeks, flicking down to her plush, parted lips, and then finally back up into her shimmering eyes, wide with realization, but not, he realized, anger. 

"Do you remember the centennial celebration on Alderaan three years ago?" she asked.

Ben blinked momentarily in confusion. 

"Of course," he murmured against her fingers. 

His family had stepped up to host the celebration after Aunt Breha had passed away, he remembered sadly. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why that particular event mattered right now.

Ben's gaze dipped down further, his mouth watering at the perfect swell of her breasts, clad so gently in the delicate pink silk. Heat pooled quickly, low and heavy in his abdomen, and his body leaned tantalizingly towards her, pressing a kiss to the tips of her fingers.

"Do you remember the pastries they served for dessert?" she said.

He kissed down the length of her fingers, nuzzling into her palm with a deep breath, and inhaled the sweet, floral scent of her perfume that clung to her slender wrist. He mumbled an incoherent affirmation against the soft skin there, the soft pad of her palm resting against his cheek. 

She leaned forward, so close he could feel the soft puffs of breaths against the side of his mouth, and his cock throbbed in anticipation, until Rey innocently asked — 

"Do you know how to make them?"

Ben pulled back with an amused frown. 

The pastries from that evening, he thought back, were an old family recipe. A bite-sized twist on a classic Jogan fruit cake. 

He could make them in his sleep. But he had a feeling that the moment he admitted so, the chance he was going to be peeling her out of these pink lacy items she called _clothes_ any time soon, would become virtually nil.

Still, he replied — 

"Yes…"

Rey's eyes widened into saucers and when she opened her mouth, Ben had a strong inclination about what she was going to say.

"Can we make them?"

* * *

By the time the dough was rolled out long and wide across the counter, Ben had pulled a verifiable pound of flour through his long, dark hair. 

Whatever he hadn't additionally dusted onto the front of his bright red apron, he'd kneaded into the pastry dough over the past thirty minutes, transforming it into the stretched out oval on the counter that Rey peered down at now. 

She would make fun of him for how ridiculous he looked, what with the apron tied around his otherwise bare chest, but she knew he could very well tease her all the same. 

In fact, Rey’s heart stuttered a little at the thought of how she must look right now. An over-sized, matching red apron tied loosely over her pink lacy underwear. It was verifiably indecent. 

While she did genuinely want to try the tasty little pastries again — Jogan fruit tarts — he’d called them. But she had to admit that she also wanted to torture Ben a bit. Just as penance for the white lie he told her about who made all their meals. 

So, prancing about with her backside exposed like this while she forced him to make little desserts far too tiny for his massive hands, ought to rile him up just enough. 

Of course, it wasn’t all charming. 

He’d put her to work mixing the filling for the pastries, and her arm had started to ache after the repetitive movement. For what must've been the third time now, she tipped the lip of the bowl towards him and asked — 

"Is it ready _now_?" 

Ben narrowed his eyes and leaned across the counter to poke one finger into the viscous, fruit filling. 

"Almost," he said, and Rey groaned in frustration. “It’s still a little grainy.”

"My arm is _killing_ me," she said, letting go of the spoon and rubbing at her forearm with her fingers, turning her wrist in circles to stretch the sore tendons. 

By some miracle, he decided to take pity on her. 

“Alright, we’ll swap,” he said, taking the bowl from her side of the table, setting down the rolling pin, and pushing the small kitchen knife towards her. “The dough is thin enough now, and we need to start cutting it into stars.”

Rey picked up the knife and got to work. 

The first star she cut was a little wonky, too big on one end, and too skinny on another. The next was a little better, but she was still frustrated by the difficulty of cutting through the dough. It felt too wet and sticky still, so she scooped some flour off the table and patted it into the dough to dry it out a bit. After that it became a little easier to slice through, and she managed to get the next few stars cut out with almost equal-sized points. 

She looked up to show Ben the much-improved stars — 

— and found him standing stock-still, slack-jawed, staring straight down the front of her apron at her lace-clad chest. 

He jumped so hard upon being caught in the middle of ogling her, that he nearly dropped the bowl of filling, and flushed such a deep red color she could’ve sworn he’d spilled some of the fruity substance all over his face. 

“Enjoying the view?” she teased, and her eyes glanced down to check, the tented front of his apron telling her what she already knew to be true. 

Ben coughed into his shoulder at a lame attempt to save himself some time, but finally turned back to her, face flushed and eyes wide and dark with arousal, and said “very much.”

Then it was Rey’s turn to blush, but as she returned to cutting out the stars, she made no effort to hide her chest underneath the apron. 

The pastries may have been dessert, but teasing Ben Solo like this was the real treat. 

He did finally return to the mixing, and by the time she’d cut out the rest of the stars, he’d deemed the mixture to be as smooth as the recipe required. With a smaller spoon he placed a dollop of the Jogan fruit mix into the center of each of the stars. Then Ben showed her how to fold up all the corners to the middle and pinch them there with a bit of water to stick. Finally, they placed them in clean rows on a large baking tray. 

As Ben busied himself with getting the treats into the oven, Rey pulled herself up onto the counter beside him, the cool stone surface of it stinging her mostly bare rear. Ben had sat the bowl and spoon with the remnants of the fruit filling onto the counter, and Rey eyed it longingly, licking her lips.

Sparing one final glance towards Ben, whose flour dusted head was still bent over the oven settings, she picked up the bowl, and grabbing the handle of the wooden spoon, brought the sweet mixture to her mouth, licking a stripe up the concave surface. 

Sugar and tart hit her taste buds, and she hummed happily around the end of the spoon. The memory of that evening on Alderaan, one of the more pleasant functions she’d had to attend during her time as Queen, came swimming back at the taste. 

The Skywalkers, though mourning their friend, had thrown everything into the event, putting on a magnificent celebration for the centennial peace treaty. They had powered through the evening with smiles on their face, every one of them. 

Her grandfather had called it weakness. She privately disagreed.

Now here she was, sitting in the Skywalker estate, painstakingly baking a family recipe in the dying sunlight of a summer day in the Lake Country. It was so delightful that not even the thought of her grandfather’s easy cruelty could put a bitter taste in her mouth.

She scooped another spoonful out of the bowl, but before she could bring more of the mixture to her mouth, the spoon left her grasp and sailed three feet into Ben's outstretched hand.

All concern of her stolen treat left her mind and she met his stare in shock.

"You know _the Force_?" she asked, almost hating the sense of wonder that leached into her voice.

Ben looked nonplussed at her question. 

"Rey,” he deadpanned, “I trained as a Jedi Padawan for six years. My Uncle is Master Luke Skywalker. I'm named after the Grand Master of the Jedi Order. Of _course_ I know the Force."

She felt a little chastened by the obvious admission, but embarrassment didn’t last long, as he licked the dollop of fruit filling that she had scooped out for herself into his own mouth, his darkening gaze never leaving her once, and she felt pleasantly hot under his stare.

"Do _you_ know the Force Rey?" he asked, scooping more of the mixture out of the bowl. 

Rey smiled and raised her palm. 

Usually she found that closing her eyes was the best way to focus and tap into that energy that she felt singing around her, but this time, something made her keep them open, focused dead ahead at the man leaning against the kitchen island across from her. 

Sitting up on the counter like this meant that their eyes were almost in line with one another, and she let herself get lost in the swirling, amber depths of them. 

This time, she reached for the Force that existed not just outside her in the in-between spaces, but from within, and more accurately, from in between them. 

The spoon sailed out of his hand and back into hers, answering her call through that sentient, unknowable energy, with an ease that she had never experienced before.

“Just a little,” she said, grasping the wooden handle firmly and licking up the curve of it in one long, clean swipe. 

Ben’s eyes darkened immeasurably at that, amber irises swallowed into black pupils, and Rey felt her heart rate shoot up as Ben pushed off the island, crossing the three feet of space between them until his hips bumped into the counter between her legs. 

His tongue tasted like sugar and Jogan fruit in her mouth, his hands like glowing embers as they gripped her waist, and slid back, his deft fingers untying the back of her apron, the heavy cotton ties hitting the counter with a tap. 

He pulled back from their kiss just long enough to slip the top of the apron over her head and it fell to the floor between them with a rustle. 

Ben groaned low under his breath as his eyes roved admiringly up and down her body, and this time Rey let herself give in to the relishing feeling of being adored like this. With a deep breath, she rested her hands on the breadth of his muscular shoulders and leaned back in to kiss him again. 

Each one seemed less awkward and clumsy than the last, until she’d gotten the hang of how exactly to slot their mouths together in a way that wouldn’t cause their noses and teeth to bump, and from there it was pure bliss. 

His fingers and palms traced down her sides, over the lace underwear clinging to her hips to cup at her ass with a firm hold. Rey gasped into his mouth, intensifying their kiss, and her hand found their way into his thick, soft hair, combing the flour deeper into it with long pulls. 

_He’ll have to take a shower after this_ , she thought. _Maybe he’d let her join him_ —

The shrill beeping of a timer ringing yanked her out of the fantasy, and Ben pulled away with a displeased groan, taking his warmth with him. 

Rey’s legs shivered at the cold air, and she squeezed her thighs together to try and keep the pleasant feeling of pressure against her a little longer. The movement made her realize just how wet she’d gotten under his caresses, and she let out a small moan as the seam of the lace underwear rubbed against her clit. 

Mortified by the thought that she may have made a mess of the counter, she moved to hop down but Ben, of course, wasn’t having it. 

“Don’t go anywhere,” he said, low and strained and Rey wanted to laugh a little at the sight of him, clearly so worked up from their passionate embrace whilst juggling a hot tray of steaming pastries in gloved hands. 

He set them tenderly down on the top of the stove, removing the gloves and flapping them above the steaming surface. 

They looked ravishing, and Rey reached for one but Ben grabbed her hand before she could touch them. 

“They still need to cool,” he explained, but it just sounded like an excuse to get back in her arms. 

She could not find any objection though, as she opened her legs for him again and he slotted into place, dragging her hips to the lip of the counter so that she was flush against him. 

Ben kissed her hard, one hand pressed into her lower back, holding her tight, the other tracing lines and swirls along her inner thigh. If she wasn’t aroused before, she certainly was now, the tight stretch of the lace against her clit providing both stimulation and relief, and the rest of her body warmed and excited by the touch and taste of him so close, and devouring her with such undivided attention. 

“Can I take these off,” he murmured at the corner of her mouth, his fingers running over the hem of the underwear to indicate his meaning. 

It was everything she wanted and yet — 

“You want to do it right here?” Rey asked hesitantly. 

Ben nuzzled into her, the beginnings of stubble raking along the soft flesh where her neck met her shoulder. 

“Why not?” he answered, kissing the words into her skin. 

Her eyelids fluttered as his fingers slipped underneath the lace of her underwear, teasing towards where they both wanted him to touch. 

"Because it's… so..." Rey fought for words as he tugged lightly on her underwear, "public," she decided on.

She felt him grin against her skin and he nipped lightly at her shoulder.

" _Rey_ ," he whispered, and _kriff_ she had started to love the sound of her name in his mouth, "you do realize that apart from two meddling droids that I will happily tear the circuits out of, we are the only two people for _miles_. This house, and every room in it, is your private space, to do with as you please."

Her heart skipped a beat at the insinuation of his words, and his clamant touch. 

“So tell me, Rey,” his deep voice tingling her skin, vibrating outwards from where he kissed the words into the dip of her clavicle. 

“What do _you_ want?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars References:  
> [Jogan Fruit](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jogan_fruit)  
> I made up the pastries they eat, and also the Alderaanian celebration (there's just not enough canon info about Alderaan, makes me so sad)
> 
> If you liked this chapter, drop a kudos or a comment! Let me know what you think Rey's gonna say she wants next chapter ;) 
> 
> Come hang out on twitter! [@empirestriksben](https://twitter.com/empirestriksben)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want to hurt you,” he mumbled against her lips, his breath hitching and voice strained.
> 
> “You won’t,” she said, and to prove it, she curled her legs around his waist and pushed him with her heels until he was buried all the way inside her. “I can take it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ashamed to say that this chapter has forced me to add the tag "inappropriate use of the force".
> 
> Content warnings: fingering, oral sex, penetrative sex, mentions of birth control.

“ _What do you want_?”

Rey’s heart pounded under her ribcage at his question, and the space between her legs, which his long, soft fingers inched towards, ached with need.

What _doesn’t_ she want would be a better question, though even then she struggled to find something she would refuse him at this moment. 

As with last time, her lack of experience was the thing that tripped her up the most, but she refused to let it stop her entirely. 

Because if Rey was being honest, what she wanted next was arrantly obvious.

She remembered the way that she always needed her fingers stuffed inside herself to bring her to climax. The tantalizing image that the little holonovel had given her of the demon’s fingers spreading Kira apart. The way that she’d come the second Ben’s thick finger had nudged inside her — how if he’d pushed in a little deeper, she was almost certain it would’ve been her favorite part. 

Now, nothing was stopping her from asking for exactly that. Still, she couldn’t look him in the eye as she asked for it; instead she leaned into his warm cheek and whispered in his ear. 

“I want your fingers inside me.”

Ben groaned low in his throat and his grip on her thighs tightened. 

“ _Kriff_ , Rey,” he growled into the nape of her neck. 

Evidently, he needed no further prompting, and Rey let out a high-pitched whine as he finally slid two strong fingers against her clit. 

She clapped a hand over her mouth at the sound, but his fingers closed around her wrist and tugged her hand away. 

“No,” he said, “You don’t have to hide it. I want to hear you.” 

Rey felt herself nod and let her hand fall back to the counter, gripping the edge as he worked the pads of his fingers over her clit and further down her cunt, coating them in slick wetness. 

Her underwear, as alluring as they were, became a nuisance, and soon they were unceremoniously discarded to the floor along with her apron. Shortly after that, the lace bra followed, until she was spread out completely bare in front of him. 

Ben’s eyes matched the jet-black shade of his wavy hair as he regarded her new-found nudity with wonder. 

He took one of her nipples into his mouth, rolling it between his teeth and tongue, until she was writhing so hard from the sensitivity, she barely noticed his middle finger slip past her entrance and slide in deep. 

Barely. 

“ _Ben_ ,” she whined, and clenched around the thickness of it. 

One of his fingers was surely the width of two of hers, and easily an inch longer. More than that, Rey realized with stunning certainty that this was the first time anything other than her own fingers had been inside her. 

Some stupid, naive part of her thought it would feel by and large the same, but how delighted she was to be wrong. 

When she touched herself, she couldn’t help but be distracted by the dual sensation of not just how her body felt to take her fingers, but the disagreeable feeling of her fingers touching her insides. The additional thrill of not knowing exactly how he’d push in next, and the ease of letting go and allowing someone else to take her like this, was incomparable. 

“Can you take another?” he asked, voice husky and eyes lidded with arousal. 

On instinct, Rey spread her legs a couple more inches and nodded. She looked down at the thick line of his cock pushing against his trousers, remembering the solid, thick look of it. 

She’d have to figure out how to take a lot more than just two fingers. 

“Yes,” she nodded, and braced herself for the intrusion.

But it didn’t come, not right away. 

Ben pulled her closer, soothing her with warm, comforting circles of his hand over her lower back, and rained kisses over her neck and shoulders, and finally meeting her lips. 

She moaned into his mouth as his thumb found her clit and teased it with easy, small circles until she was dripping onto his hand and the counter below.

Finally, he added a second finger. 

The stretch was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, for a moment edging over the line into pain as her thighs shook from force of it, until he started to thrust them in and out with small, powerful strokes, and his thumb pressed harder into her clit. 

Rey broke the kiss and let her head fall back against the cupboards behind her, giving into the temptation to spread her legs as far as they would go, and let him take her on his fingers until she was practically screaming with pleasure. 

“You’re a kriffing liar, aren’t you,” she whined as he bumped against a spot inside her that made stars shoot behind her eyelids. “You must have done this before.”

Rey could see the smug surprise in his eyes. 

“No,” he smiled, “I wouldn’t lie about that.”

“Then how— _ahh_ —” her sentence was cut off as he pulled one of her nipples between his fingers, tweaking it until the pink nub poked up hard. “—how do you know what to do?”

He didn’t answer for so long Rey thought he maybe hadn’t heard her. That his attention was so undivided on hitting every single one of her pleasure points, that he simply didn't have enough mental focus to answer her inane questions. 

She jumped around the spread of his fingers when he finally answered. 

“I don't know. It feels like… I can just read your mind. Like I know what you’re going to ask for next before you even say it, so I just… do that.”

 _You know what I want before I know it_ , she thought. 

It was as if some invisible barrier between them shattered, and suddenly the scent and sight and feel of him was not just outside her, invading and intruding, but living inside her. 

Rey _heard_ him, inside her head, say— 

_It seems that way._

She couldn’t scrabble together the mental fortitude to pull apart what had transpired between them, as Ben used whatever this new mental connection was to drive his fingers hard against that spot inside her he’d brushed against earlier. Nudging his thumb just slightly to the left so it rubbed straight in the center of her clit, he sent her tumbling over the edge of a startling orgasm. 

She rode his thick fingers through the blinding wave of pleasure, clenching her dripping cunt around the girth of them as he worked her through it, dragging out her release in smaller waves until she was thoroughly spent. 

He removed his thumb moments before the pressure got to be too much but kept his fingers inside for her to grip and wring every ounce of pleasure from, until finally, he eased them out of her too.

Rey blinked up at him through her eyelashes and recognized the same incomprehensible confusion that she felt reflected back in Ben’s own face. 

“What was that?” he said, 

Rey’s heart pounded hard against her ribcage and she shook her head. 

“You felt it too?” she asked. Ben nodded, his eyes flicking over her face rapidly. “Like I could hear your thoughts, inside my own head. Was that the Force?”

Ben frowned, deep in concentration, as though he was trying to resurrect a long-past memory. Finally, he shook his head. 

“I’ve never heard of the Force working that way,” he said slowly, his intense gaze never leaving her once. “But I suppose anything is possible.”

Rey rested her head back against the cupboards and let her eyes fall shut, overwhelmed by so much new and confusing information. So many new feelings and questions pushed worryingly against her heart — the Force, like she had never felt it before. _Ben_ , like she had never felt him before. And all of it compressed into one whirlwind, impulsive week. 

A warm hand landed gently on her knee and Rey’s eyes fluttered open again, finding Ben’s intense stare unremoved from her face. His hair was completely destroyed, lips deep pink as his cheeks, and parted as heavy breaths filled his chest. He still looked —

“Oh no,” Rey said, realizing quite suddenly why he still looked so haggard, “you still didn't —”

“Oh… it’s okay,” Ben said, trying to fluff her off.

“No, no,” Rey said, shaking her head. She pulled herself up to lean back in close and whispered, “I want to.”

Nervously, she leaned back in to kiss him. It would be easier to do if she could focus on kissing him, on the soft press of his lips against hers, as she reached around to untie his apron and let it drop to the floor. 

Then the only stitch of clothing between them were the black trousers he’d thrown on that afternoon. Rey would remedy that soon, but first, without separating from their open-mouthed kiss, she reached her hand down the front of the pants and wrapped her hand around the thick base of his hard cock. 

He groaned into the kiss, but apart from his shoulders slumping in pleasure, he didn’t make any sudden movements like last time. 

She recalled the rapid tugging motions he’d brought himself off with and moving her hand up to grip the length of his cock tightly, began to emulate them as best she could. 

Clearly, she was doing something right, as Ben gripped her hips hard and broke away to bury his moans in the crook of her shoulder. She was mesmerized by the feel of his cock, like silk-wrapped steel, warm and heavy in her hand. 

He tugged his trousers off fully, giving her far more access to pull and stroke the length of him, relishing the freedom to swipe her thumb over the soft head of it, experimenting with slower and faster strokes. But she was struck by how long it seemed to be taking, and soon worry crept in. 

“Am I bad at this?” she asked. 

A stream of swear words fell from his mouth. 

“No, Rey, you’re doing… very, _very_ good.”

“But last time I touched you, it was… better? Right away?” she asked. 

Ben picked his head up from her shoulder, his brown eyes wide with what Rey realized almost immediately was embarrassment. 

“That was… uhm… that usually doesn’t happen,” he said, his face pulling into a pained, apologetic expression, which Rey could not fathom for the life of her. “I was a little, ah, pent up.”

Whatever the mental link between them was flared up suddenly, as for the first time Rey saw herself through Ben’s eyes. 

That first morning on the balcony in her tiny silk shorts. How aroused he felt at the sight of her in his clothes. The golden, pink flush of her cheeks in the orchard. Pulling her close in the Falcon. The red dress hugging her curves at dinner. Their heated kiss on the balcony. 

Through his eyes, she felt the lingering, unabated arousal he’d felt, combined with the unwillingness to do anything about it. With a surprising boldness, Rey said— 

“You should have done what I did.”

—and in return, she pushed a memory through their mental link as well. Ben’s jaw slackened as she flashed him images of laying in her large, soft bed, reading the salacious novel, and touching herself to the thought of his body on top of hers. 

“That’s what you were doing before I caught you out on the balcony?” he asked, and she felt his cock twitch in her hand. She bit her lip and nodded. 

Rey felt the wave of arousal hit her through the bond before she even saw it on his face, and a second later he pulled her tight against him, trapping his cock between their bodies and pressing it hard against the apex of her thighs. 

“Tell me what you thought about,” he growled before sliding his lips against hers in a hard, biting kiss. “What you wanted then. Anything at all — it’s yours.”

Rey’s eyes fluttered shut as she grinded against the hard length of him between her legs, recalling the finer details of the holonovel once again. 

Kira, the protagonist, had lived all of Rey's fantasies with her guardian demon, Kylo. His mouth and fingers on her and in her, preparing her finally to take his cock. Without a second's hesitation, Rey broke off their kiss, met his heated gaze with a sure, assertive look, and replied —

“I want your cock inside me.”

A fresh wave of arousal hit her through their bond as Ben’s eyes took on an even darker, feverish intensity. 

“Are you _sure_?” he asked, though it sounded like it pained him to do so. 

“Positive,” she replied, and then a little more hesitantly added, “but… do you think it will fit?”

Ben seemed to pause for a moment, his eyes bouncing around in a way that she had come to recognize as his ‘thinking face’. Finally, they landed back on her. 

“I have an idea,” he said, piquing her curiously. He reached over to the tray of Jogan fruit pastries, picking one out at random and handing it to her. “I want you to eat one of these, and when you’re done, I’ll fuck you.”

Rey gulped and took it shakily from his hand. 

“What are you going to do?” she asked. 

In response to her question, he knelt to the floor, his head perfectly perched between her legs, and said— 

“I’m going to eat _you_.”

Rey keened low in her throat as he leaned forward and kissed her clit, his tongue darting out to add to the wetness that still clung there. For a little while, she stared down at him mesmerized as he licked and sucked at the tight bundle of nerves in a way that made her ache for more. She nearly kicked him when he pulled back. 

“Eat your pastry, Rey,” he said, before pushing her knees further apart and diving back in, this time licking at her entrance. 

Rey didn’t know how she was supposed to focus on anything except Ben Solo’s incredible mouth on her, but true to his wishes, she took a bit of the small pastry. 

The sweet Jogan fruit mix was even better warm and cooked and surrounded by fluffy, flaky pastry. She leaned her head back and with a few deep, calming breaths, let her body relax around him, enjoying the marvelous sensations of this moment.

In a thousand lifetimes she could not have imagined such exquisite pleasures being bestowed upon her at all, let alone by this man. 

Rey bit gently through the pastry, savoring every crumb as much as she savored the feeling of his tongue nudging inside her, each push easier than the last, until she was dripping and gaping open, and finally she swallowed the last bite.

“I’m done,” she said breathily, sucking on the ends of each of her fingers to taste every last bit of the sticky pastry that lingered there. She groaned as Ben eased off her and stood back up to full height, his legs wobbling just a little. 

His lips were swollen and pink and glistened with wetness, which he wiped off with his hand before pulling her in for a deep kiss. Rey could taste herself on his tongue, and through their strange, inexplicable bond, felt him taste the Jogan fruit pastry on hers. 

She grinned into the kiss, and when they finally pulled apart, she saw he was hiding a shy smile as well. 

“You liked that,” he said. It was not a question, but she nodded anyways, and the corner of his mouth crooked up in a classic smug Solo grin. “I could tell.”

Rey rolled her eyes, wiggled her hips forward on the counter and wrapped her hand around his cock, stroking it a few times until the smug smile dropped off his face and he was fully hard in her hand again. 

Then his hand came to rest warmly against her lower back, and he took his cock from her into his own hand again, positioning himself at her entrance. 

Rey’s heartbeat kicked up as she felt the soft head of it press against her sensitive core, and he coated the tip in her wetness. 

“I presume you got the same treatment as I did before coming here?” he asked, referring to the birth control implant that had been inserted into her arm, which she swore up and down at the time she would not need. 

How amusingly wrong she’d been. 

“Yes. Now _please_ , Ben,” she begged, and let her every desire flood through the bond, spurring him into action once again. 

Ben kissed her swiftly as he guided the tip of his cock past her entrance, pushing in just an inch at first. Rey gasped against his lips, gripping his broad shoulder tightly at the intrusion. 

Despite his tender and patient preparations, it still stretched her wider than anything else had before, and she choked on a whine as he teased her with a couple shallow thrusts, coating his shaft in slick wetness before pushing in an inch deeper. 

“How do you feel?” Ben asked, sounding as though his vocal cords had been trampled by an AT-TE. 

“It’s — ah, it’s tight,” she whimpered, trying her best to relax around him. “Can you touch me?” 

Thankfully, he deciphered her meaning and moved one shaking hand around to press his thumb against her swollen clit. She exhaled at the touch, the deep breath allowing him to ease further into her while she focused on the pleasure emanating from her stimulated nerves. 

Even spread out on the hard counter as she was, stretched wider than she'd ever been, Ben took her so gently and slowly, kissing and touching her everywhere he could, that she felt as though she was floating on a cloud far above the skies. 

Where Rey felt like every muscle in her body was made soft and loose and pliant by his caresses and the steady thrusts of his thick cock deeper still inside her, Ben seemed to feel the opposite.

The muscles underneath his sweat-sheened back pulled tight under Rey's palms, the rest of his body forming one hard firm line against her, tensed all the way from his shoulders to his toes, almost as if he was—

“Are you holding back?” she asked breathlessly between kisses.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he mumbled against her lips, his breath hitching, and voice strained. 

She pulled away just far enough to meet his heated stare, finding a hint of that same worry from before, mixed with burning need. 

“You won’t,” she said, and to prove it, she curled her legs around his waist and pushed him with her heels until he was buried all the way inside her. “I can take it.”

It was like a dam breaking, as Ben tightened his solid grip on her and began to thrust in earnest, letting out a deep, guttural moan at the first long drag of his cock against her inner walls. It lit an insatiable fire within her, and all of her senses seemed heightened at once: the feel of the hard length of his cock entering where she craved it most; the all-encompassing smell of pine and sweat that clung to him; the taste of the Jogan fruit that lingered on her tongue mixed with the taste of her release on his tongue; the mixed chorus of their pleasured moans bouncing around the open kitchen, and of course, the incredible sight of the dark, possessive look in Ben Solo’s eyes, hiding half in shadow by the dark curtain of hair matted against his forehead. 

Through it all, their inexplicable mental bond remained open, and when words were impossible to form, Rey’s thoughts supplied Ben with the knowledge of what she wanted and needed. 

_Faster_ , she only had to think, and Ben picked up the pace until her entire body was rocking back and forth on the counter with the power of his thrusts. _Deeper,_ she begged as he’d fallen into more shallow thrusts, correcting it at her request to sink back into her fully, pushing her walls apart deep inside. _Don’t stop_ , she’d cry if his thumb faltered on her clit for more than a second, and he’d return to circling it with just the right amount of pressure to keep her on the edge. 

Though it seemed impossible after she had already come three times that day, and the stretch of his cock was at times toed across the line of pleasure into pain, Rey steadily began to feel something building inside her again. 

It helped that through their mental bond, the pleasure was doubled—tripled, even— as she felt Ben’s own rising, frenzied gratification pass back to her, before mixing with her own and falling back to him. 

Each time it made her chase the feeling again, quick and frantic as the world narrowed to the sound of wet skin slapping and the parts of her overstimulated, heated body where he touched, and the pleasure mounted to nearly unattainable heights until finally, _finally_ — 

Rey tipped over the cliff. 

Her orgasm crashed into her hard, spreading outwards from her core, making her legs shake and body tremble as she sobbed the only word she could recall ever existing. 

“Ben—” she cried over and over as he fucked her through her release, gushing with slick wetness as she clenched around his cock, riding the long wave of her orgasm. 

Just as she thought she was coming down from the high, she felt not just her own side of the orgasm, but through the bond, what it felt like for Ben too: the tremble that rocketed through her body, clenching her tight, soft walls, his hard aching cock, pounding in hard with the aid of her wet release as she dragged him over the edge to follow her. 

Ben locked an arm around her waist and after one, two more brutal thrusts, stilled, and came deep inside her with a growl. 

Slowly, like waking from a deep, sated sleep, the mental link began to fade, and Rey came back to herself bit by bit. 

First, she wiggled her toes, forcing the tingle that ran through her feet, which still locked tightly around his waist, to abate somewhat. Her legs, she realized, ached from being pushed open so wide for such an extended period of time, and she untangled her ankles to let her legs fall down to the sides. 

The movement caused Ben’s spent cock to jolt inside her but even that small a movement rocketed agonizingly through her, twinging her entrance where the thickest part of him was still stretching her open. 

Finally, he got the picture, and slid out of her slowly, delivering one last tingling rush of sensation along her over-sensitized nerves, and Rey sobbed a little from both the ache and the loss of him inside her. 

His arms wrapped gently around her, one of his warm hands rubbing soothing circles over her shoulder blades and spine, and she could tell he was whispering calming, comforting words in her ear, but couldn’t fathom why. 

Slowly, more of the hazed fog left her mind, and the puzzle pieces clicked together, and she realized she was shaking and crying in his arms, the hard press of the counter against the raw skin between her thighs too much to bear. 

At once, Ben held her firm but gentle, one hand underneath her and the other holding tight against her back as he picked her up off the counter and fully into his arms. Rey’s head fell against his shoulder as her legs hung limply at his sides. She mashed her cheek against the soft heat of his skin as he took slow, measured steps out of the kitchen and back through the now fully dark drawing room, and into her bedroom. 

Rey clung to him tightly as they went, drifting in and out of mindlessness, until she felt herself lowered down on her side, the soft mattress providing the comforting relief her overstimulated nerves craved. 

But despite the comfort the soft bed provided, it paled in comparison to his hands on her, which was why the real sorrow came when with one final squeeze of her shoulder, he let go of her entirely and tugged the blankets up around her shoulders. 

It was a mirror of this morning, and just like then, she wanted so desperately to reach out again, take his hand, and beg him to stay in bed with her, just for a little while. 

Something made her fear that she’d wasted her one request, that she had wasted too much of his time with her frivolous fantasies already. 

That duty and responsibility now called to them both. 

So instead of reaching back, Rey let him slip wordlessly away, and she curled in on herself in the too-large bed, willing sleep to take her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars References:  
> [AT-TE](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/All_Terrain_Tactical_Enforcer)
> 
> Smut fans, you get this chapter.  
> Angst fans... get ready for the next...
> 
> Drop a kudos/comment if you like it, and come hang out on [twitter](https://twitter.com/empirestriksben)!!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hello,” he mumbled, the deep tenor of his voice striking some hidden place within her. “How are you feeling?”
> 
> He stopped mid-way across the room, and when she realized with a pained clench of her heart that he wasn’t going to come much closer, she curled an arm protectively around herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If into [this chapter] you go, only pain will you find there" - Yoda, probably
> 
> Content warnings: Minor Character Death, mentions of grooming/abuse.

He meant to leave immediately, to finally arrest the inclination to stay just one more hour, one more day, citing one more excuse. Were he a stronger man, an honorable man – a _Jedi_ , he would have left posthaste.

But Ben Solo was none of those things.

Besieged by the hedonism of the day, he clung to the incomparably beautiful sight of Rey sleeping soundlessly in her bed for far longer than he should have.

Long, dark lashes kissed the tops of her flushed, freckled cheeks. Her pink, kiss-bitten lips were parted slightly as small puffs of air blew a lock of chestnut hair that had fallen in front of her face. Tentatively, he reached forward and gently moved the hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear and letting his fingers trail down the side of her cheek as he pulled away.

The lingering bond that pulled between them hummed happily even as she slept, bringing a smile to Ben’s face as he prodded at it from his end. Just as her body had opened up for him earlier, her mind did too.

A rush of satiated, passionate energy flowed back towards him. Not to the heightened degree as when he had been deep inside her, and he’d felt the tight inner walls of her body grip and flutter as she’d come around his cock, but the aftershocks of it remained. His cock twitched interestedly at the memory, but it wasn’t the only part of him that’s curiosity was piqued by this newfound connection.

He’d never before heard of such things as a consistent and clear mental bridge between two force users, especially not limited in their powers as he and Rey both were. However, his knowledge of the deeper mysteries of the force was shallow – it would have to be a question for his Uncle, or Grand Master Obi-Wan.

If it became necessary to inquire about it at all, that is.

Another feeling licked along the edges of the bond, one that he had to admit emanated from both of them. He didn’t have to poke far to find an avalanche of apprehension, and a sliver of sadness.

He couldn’t forget what she had said to him in the early hours of the morning. That while she did wish for him to _please_ her, it was a guilty wish.

Not that he could very well blame her for admitting it. After all, it was his suggestion of a temporary truce, a promise that what would happen in Varykino would stay here, the return to normalcy unaffected by the events of the week, that led them to this point.

As the last remaining wisps of their mental link faded away, only a lasting touch of shame and embarrassment remained.

A note of sorrow crept into his heart as Ben turned away from her sleeping form, giving her shoulder one last firm squeeze, doubt slipping further into his heart with every step away from her bed.

He crept silently through her room, still naked, and decided on the slightly less risky option of the short walk across their balcony, rather than the long walk through the estate, where he may yet still run into Threepio. He crept out the door, flushed skin stinging against the cool night time air, until finally, he reached the end of the balcony and opened the door to the cold emptiness of his room. 

He surveyed his half-packed bags and crisply made bed with a shake of his head. Yesterday evening, he had been so ready to leave things as they were, with nothing but an ill-advised kiss between them – the only point of contact between two immovable stones, laid there by generations passed.

But it didn’t end there. Compassion, worry, and something even beyond his understanding, had driven him to throw a rope to the other side, and unlikely as it seemed, Rey caught it.

The cliff that once seemed insurmountable was exposed for the shallow quarry that it was.

But of course, it being the two of them after all, they couldn’t simply build a bridge and _not_ venture to what was on the other side.

Of _course_ they didn’t stop at one kiss.

Ben grabbed some clean clothes off the top of his packed case, yanking on dark trousers, a functional black top, and his only semi-formal piece of clothing he’d brought on the trip, a navy belted tunic with finely embroidered crescent moons and swirling stars in pale gold thread scattered like a starry sash diagonally across the front. He didn’t want to show up to Theed Royal Palace looking like some scoundrel who had recently ravaged his fiancé on the kitchen counter.

He clipped the bag shut a little too forcefully at the memory.

Once he’d tugged on his tall boots, he accepted that there was little left for him to do except depart for Theed. But one thought, the same that had kept him here last night as well as this morning, crept back in. 

He couldn’t just _leave her_. 

Laid out on the bed, waking up alone in the massive, empty and unfamiliar estate. It would be too cruel. At the very least, he needed to let her know that she could stay here for however long was necessary, safe and protected. 

_Protected?_ A small voice niggled at him. _By what? Threepio’s incredible blaster aim? Not likely._

If this week alone had taught him one thing, it was how strong Rey was in the face of adversity, but equally and undeniably damaged.

Whatever had been of Rey’s life thus far, Ben could say with near certainty that little of it had been pleasant. In a way, he didn’t begrudge her for over-indulging this week, for allowing herself some whimsical pleasures, even if it meant being the object of them. Ben doubted whether she had lived so luxuriously and freely in her entire life. 

Or at least, since _that_ day. 

Not for the first time in their acquaintance, and certainly not for the first time this week, Ben asked himself if she knew. If she knew, would she have asked for his touch as remorselessly as she had? Or had she simply, same as him, decided to let the past die along with Anakin and her parents. 

In any regard, Sheev Palpatine evidently had not let it go, and the Mid-Rim Committee where he was sure to take his final revenge was now less than a day away. Ben loathed to check the chronometer to determine exactly how much time had passed since Queen Meridia had informed him of the deception occurring at the Senate Committee, and how he had not taken a single action since. 

Regardless of his affections for Rey — whatever they were — and his desire to keep her safe, he needed to go. Ben dragged a hand down his face, thinking through it for a second. 

He was shocked at how long it took the idea to come to him. 

Reaching back into his suitcase, he dug through the neatly folded clothes until he found what he was looking for, his fingers finally wrapping around the cool hilt of his grandfather’s lightsaber, and he pulled it from the depths of the bag. 

Even if she didn’t know how to use it, it would still be better than nothing. Better than the poker she’d brandished at him at the door. 

Resolved to this course of action, Ben took his packed bag and the saber and finally left his room, heading across their shared balcony for a final time. Longing and loss clawed hard at his heart as he thought of how this place, this small shared space, had been their sanctuary. 

But he’d always known, somewhere in the back of his head, that it must come to an end. 

Little could have prepared him for just how disastrous an end it would be. 

* * *

Rey had not fallen asleep. Ben had stayed by her bedside for much longer than she thought he would, but she was content to feign sleep, resting under his watchful gaze, for however long he deemed necessary. 

When he finally left through the door that led out to their shared balcony, she opened her eyes, feeling too anxious to continue lying there in the empty darkness. 

The space between her legs ached in no uncertain terms. Ben Solo had truly, thoroughly fucked her against the kitchen counter this evening, and her body was evidence of it. Wetness still clung to her entrance, mixed with what of his come had leaked out of her. Her hips bore fingerprint marks, her lips swollen and kiss-bitten raw, tingled tenderly. 

More than anything she was stunned by how wholly and completely satisfied she felt in every bone and nerve and muscle in her body. 

Surprising herself more than anyone, a small satisfied moan escaped her lips, and contentment painted a small smile across her face.

Tenderly, she rose from the sheets and slipped on a pair of small silk shorts and matching strappy top. It had quickly become a favorite style of hers, she realized. How much she’d learned about herself already since that first night arriving here.

She shook her head a little as she surveyed the destruction of her room.

Her grandfather never would’ve allowed things to be in such a state, not that he’d ever given her enough possessions to be able to leave them in a mess, but somehow even the thin sheets were never tucked neatly enough, and the scraps of food never eaten delicately enough.

 _You will never be Queen with manners like that, Rey_.

She shook his voice from her head, as she so often struggled to do. But this time, instead of the empty silence of her own thoughts, another’s voice replaced it. 

_…tell me what feels good._

_…what do you want?_

_…my Queen._

The resentment in her heart that she held for herself, and for her grandfather, flagged at the memory of such adoring, gentle words. It was frightening how little tenderness had brought her to her knees in surrender.

Letting Ben Solo into her bed for one week of unattached pleasure was one thing. Letting him into her mind, her heart, was another thing entirely.

Cold realization slipped too easily back into her heart, seeping in along ancient fault lines and rivers of doubt. Somewhere along the line, between letting him lend her his clothes, make her food, and drive her body to the height of pleasure over and over again, she’d forgotten who they were, and where they stood once they left this private sanctuary.

After all, it was him that said whatever happened here would not leave here. _Him_ , who seemed to revel in the thought of being nothing more than a secret indulgence.

Nothing about their relationship would ever – could ever – change in substance, she reminded herself with a roiling resentment in her gut. When they left here her grandfather’s expectations of her would only increase manifold.

Ben and the young Queen Meridia may fight all they wished against this political maneuvering, but she knew her grandfather better than anyone. He would get his way.

Just as he would with whatever her next betrothal was – undoubtedly one that would end with a consummation of marriage.

A small voice in her head, one that sounded an awful lot like Ben’s heated murmurings against her skin, revelled in the idea that at the very least this week was her one, small act of rebellion. The twinge between her legs ached at the memory of him.

As if called by her very thoughts of him, a light knock on her door startled her from her thoughts.

She’d almost forgotten how nicely he cleaned up, and evidently, how quickly, considering the last time she saw him he was stark naked, flushed all over, and thoroughly debauched.

His tall frame hid in the corner of her doorway, his long hair pulled back into some semblance of a style, framing his angular, pale face strikingly in the darkness of the room. He donned a classic Ben Solo embroidered tunic as though he’d just stepped out of the Senate chambers. She almost expected to see a billowing cape clasped over one shoulder as he sauntered across the threshold of her bedroom, looking far too sheepish considering everything that had transpired in here between them already.

“Hello,” he mumbled, the deep tenor of his voice striking some hidden place within her. “How are you feeling?”

He stopped mid-way across the room, and when she realized with a pained clench of her heart that he wasn’t going to come much closer, she curled an arm protectively around herself.

“I’m alright,” she nodded, and after a thought added, “only in a little pain.”

His face fell into an almost mournful stare, “I’m so sorry –”

“Don’t be,” she cut him off firmly. “I’m not.”

His mouth snapped shut and he swallowed around whatever response he was considering as his eyes raked up and down her scarcely clothed body. A dark glint in his eye was all she needed to know he wasn’t sorry either.

“I have to depart now,” he said with no small amount of consternation, “but I wanted you to know that you can stay here. You’ll be safe here, no one will come for you. Once things are resolved at the committee, we’ll figure things out.”

It took everything she had to not roll her eyes at him. If he thought he could fix this schism with speeches and good will, then who was she to tell him otherwise. He’d find out the true depths of her grandfather’s power soon enough.

“But if you want to protect yourself… I want you to have this.”

She didn’t see it before, too distracted by the draw of his warm eyes and striking features to notice what he held in his hand.

Some distant, cold part of her laughed at what an analogy that was. That she let herself be diverted to such physical pleasures and ignore the singularly fundamental reason why she should have never let Ben Solo take an inch from her.

In his outstretched hand lay the polished silver hilt of a weapon that she would recognize anywhere. The weapon wielded by Anakin Skywalker as he ruthlessly slaughtered her family.

His _grandfather’s_ lightsaber.

“It isn’t difficult to use, all you have to do is turn the ignition switch on the side here –”

His thumb swiped across the side of the blade and a clear, pale blue stream of light burst from the hilt, humming dangerously in his hand, and lighting his mole-dotted face in a wash of sapphire.

The memory of screams and deep, painful anguish turned her blood to ice. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away, a shimmering cool light still dancing behind her eyelids, and the roar of the kyber crystal still taunting her.

“Put that away,” she said, hating the fearful undercurrent that laced her voice. She needed to be strong, but all she could hear was maniacal laughter buried under her mother’s terrified cries. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, transforming fear into something more manageable.

Something actionable.

Anger.

“Better yet, give it to me,” she hissed, her eyes flying open as she turned back towards him. 

Ben’s face pinched into a frown and his eyes flicked momentarily down at the weapon in his hand. For a moment, he looked like he was going to hand it to her, but at the last second, he must have seen something chilling in her eyes, and he pulled his hand away.

“No,” he said, caution creeping into his voice.

 _Clever boy_ , she thought. Smarter than either of them had been these past days. Pretending like there wasn’t this hanging over their heads. This lightsaber, and all the ruin it had brought.

 _Did he carry it around always?_ she began to wonder. At all their briefings, or her trips to the Senate, did he have it then, secretly hidden under his embroidered tunics and fine cloaks?

Or was it just for this trip? Did Padmé Amidala give this to him just in case he wanted to finish what his grandfather started? Just like her grandfather had –

 _Just like her grandfather had done_.

Realization struck her hard as she remembered the thick hilt of Sheev Palpatine’s lightsaber was still tucked at the bottom of her bag, only a few feet from her clenched fists. Just far away enough that he would reach her before she could reach it.

But she didn’t need to reach it physically, she remembered. She had the Force.

“No matter,” she said, and just as she had done with the spoon in the kitchen, what felt like an eon ago now, she tapped into the energy within her, magnified by his presence, outstretched her hand and pulled on the threads of the Force to call the lightsaber to her.

It rustled out of the bag and raced to her hand, her palm and fingers closing around the cool metal hilt.

“I brought my own.”

Rey ignited the blade, crimson light streaming from her side of the room, casting the space between them in amethyst hues.

She felt his Force signature shift uncomfortably sour as his eyes widened and flipped from her face to the saber in her hand.

“What’s the matter, Ben?” she asked, advancing slowing on him with purposeful steps, the screams of her parents still echoing in her head, suffocating any other possible thoughts, “did you not realize you were the only one who might have brought a small gift from their grandparents with them on this trip?”

At this, his grip tightened on the hilt of his lightsaber, and his face hardened a little, his full lips tightening into a firm line. _Good_ , she thought. A willing opponent was much better. Something to throw this rage guiltlessly. 

“Rey,” he said slowly, his voice still a measure calmer than hers, serving to only enrage her further, “what are you doing? This isn’t us.”

A mirthless laugh left her as she tried to hold it together, shame and disbelief filling her.

“How did we forget, Ben,” she asked, giving into the wave of energy that flowed through her, telling her to lift her own saber against him, and advance against him further, pushing them both backwards into the drawing room.

“I didn’t forget,” he said, the same calm tenor in his voice, “I chose to let it go. I know you aren’t like him, that you’re _better_ than him. We don’t have to live in the past, Rey.”

A small tendril of confusion slipped into her mind, but it was wholly overwhelmed by the barrage of anger.

“ _You_ let it go? What did _you_ have to let go, Ben?” she seethed. A frown flickered over his sharp features, but he seemed to shake it away, raising the sapphire blade higher against her.

“Rey, what do you think you’re doing with that saber –” he said, his backwards steps beginning to slow, “—you don’t know how to use it.”

“Then why did you try to bring me that one, Ben?” she growled at him, continuing to advance across the room. Very soon, she was going to run out of space, and Ben knew it too.

“I was going to _teach_ you,” he bit back, stepping a little further.

“Well next time pick a lightsaber that didn’t destroy my family.”

Ben’s foot landed hard against the ground, pulling him to a stop so abruptly that Rey came crashing into him, the blades of their lightsabers meeting in a flash of sparks and violet light. Then, without warning, the strange bond between them opened again.

Rage coursed through her, but it hit back against a wall of chaos and uncertainty, warring deep within him. Ben’s eyes had never looked so dark, contrasted against the bright illumination of their crossed sabers, but no hatred lingered in them.

“What do you mean this lightsaber destroyed your family?” he asked, holding firm against her.

Rey threw all her weight against the saber, the feel of the hilt like ice in her hands. His saber, Anakin’s, was so close she could almost hear the screams emanating from it.

Finally, she could no longer put up with his pretensions.

“Ben, your grandfather _killed_ my parents with that lightsaber.”

His long face dropped into a picture of shock and horror. Either he was a formidable actor, or he truly did not know. 

“Who told you that?” he said, the blade in question still humming in his hands. 

“Nobody needed to tell me, I was there. I _saw_ it happen,” said Rey. 

At this, Ben shook his head ever so slightly. 

“No, Rey,” he said, almost sadly, “that’s not possible.”

“Why?” she bit back, hating the way she felt tears begin to well in her eyes, sensing his sorrow through the bond. “Because it ruins your rosy image of your grandfather? Because you have to admit he wasn’t the saint you thought he was?”

A flurry of expressions flew across his face in rapid succession. Anger, bewilderment, realization, before landing, incomprehensibly, on grief.

Whatever she thought he might say – a poor defense, an apology, an unsubstantiated denial – her worst imaginations paled in comparison to what followed.

“No, Rey. Because Anakin Skywalker didn’t kill your parents. He died trying to _save_ them.”

15 Years Ago

“Dad, I need help.”

Anakin Skywalker looked up from the mess of wires at the back of Threepio’s head to find his daughter standing in the doorway of the hangar, a datapad clutched tightly in her hand, and a terrified look in her wide brown eyes. 

He threw a glance at Padmé, whose worried expression reflected his own feelings exactly. 

Had their son showed up unannounced to the Lake Country with a similar declaration, it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in the same way. But Leia? 

It gave them rightful cause for concern. 

“What’s wrong honey?” his wife asked, stepping towards Leia. 

Anakin scratched at his greying beard in thought as Padmé laid a comforting hand on their daughter’s shoulder, but Leia’s gaze stayed true on him.

“I know you’ll be upset but it’s… it’s Tannor and Milla. Dad, I’m so scared for them.”

Anakin’s heart tightened uncomfortably, and he sucked in a harsh breath, trying to stay calm for his daughter’s sake. She wasn’t wrong though, he was upset.

Despite his consistent warnings, his daughter had over the years developed a close friendship with Tannor and Milla Palpatine. He knew the three of them moved up the diplomatic corps together as friends, Milla eventually falling for Tannor, and although Anakin could never see the appeal, he was only glad Leia hadn’t been the one to do so.

Not that he approved of her choice of spouse much more, but Han had grown on him over the years.

Mostly.

“What have they gotten themselves into now?” Anakin asked, fiddling with a wrench as he gauged her reaction closely.

“Don’t be like that,” she begged. “You know they aren’t like him. He’s the problem here.”

“Of course he is, Leia.” Anakin said firmly. “He’s _always_ the problem, which is why I told you to stay away from them.”

“They’re good people, dad, and they’re in trouble.” Leia said, sounding more desperate by the second.

Anakin opened his mouth to snap a retort, but Padmé cut him off.

“Please, Leia,” she said, but threw a pointed look backwards. _Cool down_ , she seemed to say. Anakin snapped his mouth shut and after a beat, nodded. “Tell us what happened, sweetheart.”

Leia took a deep breath and began.

“For several months now, Tannor had been getting concerned about Sheev’s intentions with his daughter, Rey. They want to send her to school, have her make friends, but Sheev blocks it every time. He traps them all in that house, barely lets them go to their jobs, and doesn’t let Rey out of the house at all. He keeps talking about how Rey will be the success Tannor never was, and how he wants her to stay with him and train her.”

Anger boiled in his chest, and disgust roiled his stomach. Though none of it was surprising, it was traumatic to hear his own abuse reflected in another.

“Two weeks ago, they told me they were planning on fleeing. Han and I set them up with a safe house on Coruscant, and they were supposed to meet Han there but they’re hours late now, and I can’t reach either of them. I’m worried… dad, I’m so worried –”

“That he’s got to them.”

Leia nodded and the tears that had been welling in her eyes finally fell down her cheeks. Padmé gathered her up in her arms, and Leia clung tightly back.

“They’re not such bad people, Anakin,” said Padmé, looking at him mournfully.

He tightened his grip on the wrench in his hand.

“Well what do you want me to do?” he asked, heart breaking at the sight of his family wrecked, once again, over the Palpatines.

“Maybe the Jedi would know what to do?” Padmé suggested. “We could call Obi-Wan –”

“— they don’t want anything to do with Palpatine,” Anakin cut her off. “They _never_ have.”

He searched his daughter’s face with sorrow, resignation settling deep in his chest. She sunk the nail in the coffin with one final sentence.

“Their daughter, Rey… she reminds me so much of Ben when he was little.”

Slowly, he sat the wrench down on the bench in front of him. Threepio’s repairs would have to wait. He made his way around the workbench, approaching his wife and daughter huddled close, and brought them both into his arms for a tight embrace, dropping a kiss to the top of Leia’s head.

“Alright,” he said finally, and she looked up at him with her wide brown eyes, for the first time that afternoon full of hope, “I will do what I can.”

* * *

Palpatine’s manor home in the downtown core of Theed was a monstrous, chilling estate thought Anakin as he stood on the front steps, peering up at the towering dark wood doors with apprehension.

“ _What are you going to do?”_ Ahsoka had said, rolling her eyes at him through the holo when he com'd her on the way over, “ _stroll up to his front door and ask him if he kidnapped his own family some time in the past few days_?”

Apparently, yes.

He had to push the call button on the side of the door frame several times before someone finally attended to it, the door opening a few inches to reveal a shiny silver protocol droid behind it.

“I’m here to speak to Sheev Palpatine,” he said without preamble. The droid looked up and down at him with its expressionless eyes.

“Do you have an appointment?” it finally said.

“No,” Anakin admitted, “but he would understand. Tell him it’s an… old friend.”

“Master Palpatine is not seeing any visitors today —” the protocol droid spat back at him “— good day, Sir.”

The door swung back in his face, but at the last second, Anakin stuck his hand out and stopped it from shutting all the way. He took a step towards the door, pushing back against the droid.

“Tell him,” he said slowly, his voice dropping an octave, “that Anakin Skywalker is here to see him.”

He could see the wheels spinning in the droid’s head, feeding his name through its computer, referring to its protocols to see if it changed anything. To his surprise, the droid said –

“That name has no meaning here. Goodbye, Anakin Skywalker.”

— and slammed the door in his face.

 _Some things really do change_ , he thought, a wry smile working its way onto his face.

Part of him wanted to give up there, tell Leia there was nothing more he could do, but as he turned away from the door he spotted a window off to the side and one floor up that had been left open a crack. The wall leading to it was built from old Naboo stone, rough and corrugated along the dark expanse of it. Perfect footholds for scaling.

Anakin looked back and forth down the sparsely populated path that led him down here. A small group of people were milling about down one end, but if he was fast, they wouldn’t spot him, and so without a further word to it, he climbed over the railing of the front steps and leapt onto the wall, crashing against it hard and using the force to hold himself delicately balanced there. His joints and muscles protested angrily.

 _I’m getting too old for this_ , he thought.

He moved quickly, his foot landing in one place for no longer than a split second, not enough time for the stone to scrape away impatiently, scaling close to the wall until he reached the open window. He pushed it open wide enough to slip through, hoisted himself over the edge and landed silently to the tile floor below.

The hall he landed in was dimly lit and plastered with glossy tile a shade darker than the outside of the house was. Where it was not draped in ruched mauve curtains, it was polished enough that he could see his own dark reflection slip quietly down the hall, guided in his path by the force and the sound of voices increasing in volume.

Finally, he arrived at the end of the hall, where the voices became loud enough to suggest that whoever was speaking was through the door next to him. One voice he recognized immediately.

“What is it, TC-430,” came the shrill, scaly voice of Sheev Palpatine.

“A man named Anakin Skywalker was at the door looking for you,” the droid from the front door said.

“What?” Palpatine hissed.

“I sent him away, Sir,” the droid said.

“Good, good," he seethed, "now leave us.”

Anakin listened close as the sound of a door shutting was followed by an electric charge and a blood-curdling scream.

“Father, no!” Tannor Palpatine’s yell was drowned out by the continued sound of lightning and a woman’s terrified, pained scream. Anakin felt a wave of mixed emotions through the door leading to the room. Palpatine’s anger and hatred, his son’s fear and anguish, and his wife’s pain and terror. It overwhelmed him, and his Jedi training seemed to kick in without warning, compartmentalizing the outwards sensations, and calming his pounding heart.

Finally, the lightning and screams cut off abruptly, and it sounded as though a limp body hit the floor hard.

“This was your flawless plan, my son?” Palpatine asked, “or did the Skywalker girl plant this idea for you?”

“Please, father, we did not know he was coming here. I – I have no idea why he has come.”

“I told you, my son,” Sheev continued, his faux-sweet tone crawling over Anakin’s skin, “befriending the Skywalkers will only bring you pain. You should have stayed away from her. It did not have to come to this, my son. But now… I am afraid… there is no other option.”

Anakin’s heart leapt in his chest. He was going to kill them both, that is, if Milla wasn't already dead.

There was no time left to do anything else.

Anakin stepped a foot back from the door, stretched out his hand, and pulling on the thread of the Force, blew it open.

The scene that met him was one of despair. A woman, who he recognized as Leia’s friend Milla, lay sprawled out on the floor, her husband Tannor hovering above her, his face tear-stricken in horror as he looked up at Anakin from his place kneeled over on the floor. Finally, Sheev Palpatine himself, standing tall above the two of them, his hands outstretched as though to deliver the final blow to his only son.

Sheev spun on his heel and Anakin’s heart clenched uncomfortably as for the first time in several years now, he came face to face with the man that was the cause of an incalculable amount of pain in his life.

“ _Anakin_ ,” Palpatine said, “how nice of you to join us.”

“Sheev…” he said, taking a slow step towards the Palpatines huddled close. The girl Leia spoke of, Rey, was nowhere in sight, but unless he was mistaken, he could feel her small force signature hovering just outside the other door to this room, the one the droid must have exited from. “What’s going on here?”

“This is a private family matter,” Sheev said, lowering his hands slightly, “surely you can understand that.”

Anakin’s hand twitched at his side; the hilt of his lightsaber tucked into the sleeve of his robe responding with a shudder.

“That’s not what it looks like to me.”

“Anakin –” the desperate plea came from the younger Palpatine, and Anakin’s head turned to him quickly, regarding with sorrow the man huddled on the floor over his wife, his eyes wide with fear and understanding, “my daughter, please, save her.”

He had already given up on himself, on his wife. Only his daughter’s life did he beg for now.

For good reason, as the mask of kindness fell off Sheev’s face, replaced by the true, evil horror that hid just underneath, and he turned back to his only son with a vicious, merciless glint in his eye, raising his hands against him one final time.

Lightning streamed from Sheev Palpatine’s fingers, all other noise of the room drowned out in the dying man’s screams as he writhed and thrashed on the floor.

Anakin’s lightsaber fell from his sleeve into his palm, screaming to life in his hand, as he advanced on Palpatine, throwing himself between Tannor and the stream of lightning without a second thought.

Pale blue lightning ricocheted off the sapphire blade as Anakin sent the arc of it skyward, blowing a hole in the ceiling of the room as debris rained down around them. The hilt of the lightsaber vibrated painfully in his hand, putting up a valiant effort at fighting off the onslaught against it.

But Palpatine was too powerful, and the force of the lightning too much to bear.

With a final scream of protest, the hilt fell from his fingertips and Anakin was flown backwards across the room, his back slamming into the far wall, his old bones shattering. As he crumpled to the floor, he saw the lightsaber soar through the air, the course of its path altered sharply by Sheev’s outstretched hand as he caught it mid-arc and ignited the blade once again.

“Thank you, Anakin,” Sheev said, a maniacal smile stretched unevenly across his molted, aged face, “this will make the task much easier.”

Anakin could only watch, his body broken on the floor, as Sheev raised his lightsaber and brought it down swiftly, driving it deep through his son’s heart.

Anguish reared inside him, and from some place else as well. The girl, he thought, she must be watching just outside the door. His mind raced with what to do, how to still save her, but as Tannor Palaptine’s burnt, deceased body crumpled thoughtlessly to the ground, he knew all hope was lost.

Sheev spared barely a second glance at it before turning his cruel smile on Anakin.

He approached him slowly, his purposeful steps landing hard on the cool tile as Anakin’s chest heaved with pained, shallow breaths. He must have punctured a lung with a shattered rib, he thought. Sheev stopped in front of him and all other cognition seemed to cease.

“One final chance, Anakin,” he said, all counterfeit pleasantries removed from his voice. “Join me, together we can train the girl. Your grandson too. Build the next generation of the Sith.”

Anakin could only laugh, a hand clutch over his chest as he fought through the pain.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” he gasped, fighting for every breath. “I’ll _never_ join you.”

Sheev’s expression transformed from malevolent hope, to stinging dismay.

“You were supposed to be my prized pupil,” he said, angry still, at his long-foiled plans, “but your _Master_ had other ideas. And now… look at you. Such a sad, pathetic end for the _chosen one_.”

As Palpatine raised his hands to deliver the final blow, Anakin felt no fear and no pain as the sharp bolts of lightning struck his heart, stopping it almost on impact.

He dropped to the ground dead, a strangely contented look forever painted on his laughed-lined face, pleased by the knowledge that he had succeeded in disappointing Sheev Palpatine one final time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends, I know it's bee a couple weeks since I posted, life has been crazy! Labour day weekend I participated in a contest called the 3-day novel contest, where i wrote 105 pages (32k words!) in 72 hours. So I was preparing for that, then doing it, then mentally exhausted! Thank you for your patience and for sticking with me - I wish I had some fluff for you but this chapter was a doozy! 
> 
> If you need something to cheer you up after, go check out [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26461660) tooth-rotting fluff my friend del just wrote 
> 
> Posting schedule updates can be found on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/empirestriksben)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No," she shook her head, “he wouldn’t.” But behind their joined sabers, behind the curtain of rage that clouded her delicate features, he saw it in her eyes.
> 
> The moment she believed him.

“Anakin Skywalker didn’t kill your parents. He died trying to save them.”

"Right," she sneered, her eyes narrowing at him, "save them from _who_?"

Ben tilted his head to the side, just enough to indicate his meaning, to point to the only obvious conclusion, without having to even say it.

"No," she shook her head, “he wouldn’t.” But behind their joined sabers, behind the curtain of rage that clouded her delicate features, he saw it in her eyes.

The moment she believed him. 

It was nothing more than a flicker in her otherwise fierce, unrelenting fury, but for him it was enough. All he needed and more, to grip his fingers into and pull. 

“Yes, Rey,” he pushed his saber against hers harder, sparks flying up between them from the force of it, “search your feelings, you’ll find the truth no matter how deep it’s hidden.”

Her scorn turned to rage, a rage borne of fear, and she brought the saber down clashing against him with force. 

“You sound like a Jedi,” she said, and it was obvious she didn’t mean it as a compliment. “Is that the lie you’ve been fed all these years? That your grandfather was a _good Jedi_ all along, right to the very end, even after he was thrown out and cast aside by them.”

Ben felt a crazed grin, almost maniacal, take over his face. 

For how many years had Ben wondered what terrible things Palpatine hissed in Rey’s ear. His decrepit, old form leaning close to her delicate cheek, spinning a poisonous web of lies deep into her consciousness, strong enough that she could stand here in front of him and repeat his words like gospel. 

Realization clicked into Ben’s mind. 

_This_ is what his grandmother sent him here for. Not to unite their families, bring peace to their beloved planet — that was merely a cover for his true mission. 

Reconnaissance. 

He could hardly blame her. After all, for however many times _he_ had wondered what Sheev Palpatine’s line was, he knew his grandmother had wondered the same, and for far longer. 

What he possibly said to his closest remaining confidants and last living family member to justify what he had done. Rey most likely didn’t even realize how much she was spilling her grandfather’s secrets. The dogmatic lies she repeated came flowing forth easily, exposing the depth of her grandfather’s ruse, and how strongly Rey bought it. 

He only hoped it wasn’t so strong that it couldn’t still be chipped away, or torn apart. He had to try. 

“Did _he_ tell you that?” She gave no response, but her silence was enough of an answer. “Then it is you who has been lied to all these years —”

“ — There’s nothing you could say that would make me believe you,” she cut him off, “not with _that_ still raised against me.”

Ben followed her gaze to the hilt of his grandfather’s lightsaber still ringing in his hand. She still believed this to be the weapon that had slain her family, in the hands of another Skywalker, and until he showed her otherwise, it would remain a barrier between her and the truth. 

Ben took a deep breath, a leap of faith, and extinguished the blade with a slide of his thumb over the ignition switch. 

“Fine,” he said. 

Nothing stood between his heaving chest and the crimson blade in her hand.

“If you don’t believe me, then strike me down where I stand. Avenge your parents, make me pay for whatever it is you think Anakin Skywalker did. If you want the same thing as your grandfather, then kill me, here and now. But I refuse to fight you anymore.”

Then, pushing back against his self-preservation instincts that screamed at him to take up the blade again and force it against her harder still, he instead tossed the lightsaber to the ground, metal clanging against the hardwood floor, and raised his hands in surrender. 

Only the crimson blade remained, casting a blood red shadow over her sharp features, and her grip tightened on the thick hilt of it perceptibly. Any trace of the woman he’d baked pastries with, comforted in the rain, taken to bed — was gone. His stomach dropped to the floor as the gravity of the risk he’d taken took hold of him. 

This kind of risk-it-all attitude was usually reserved for his father, and it got him into trouble more times than he could count. But his father had always made it out to tell the tale, and so Ben leaned fully on Han Solo’s number one strategy to escape any bad situation — _‘never stop talking, kid’_.

“My grandfather left the Jedi order of his own volition. Encouraged so by his master when he discovered that Senator Amidala was pregnant with Anakin’s children. I would not deny there is no bad blood there, and that on doctrine. In many ways, my family is no more a friend to the Jedi than yours, but never enough to turn to the dark side.”

Her face remained one hardened line of anger, but the red saber didn’t inch it’s way closer to his jugular. 

“What else do you want to know?” 

Confusion crossed her features, but to both their surprise, she broke her silence at his question. 

“Why do you call it that?” he frowned at her meaning until she clarified. “The _dark_ side.”

“To all things in the universe there is balance,” he said, drawing on his Uncle’s first lesson, drilled into him more times that he could count. “The Force is not itself light or dark, merely its users.”

“And what, you think my grandfather — me, that we are _dark_ Jedi?” she whispered quietly. 

“Sith,” he corrected. Some measure of recognition flickered in her eyes. “Have you heard him use that word before?”

A momentary beat of silence followed, but slowly, Rey nodded. 

“Not to me. Never when he knew I was listening. But yes, I’ve heard him say it.”

Ben sucked in a deep breath as Rey confirmed what likely lay at the depths of his family’s worst fears: Sheev Palpatine was working to rebuild the Sith order. Whether he had succeeded was another matter, one Ben doubted whether even his granddaughter had the answer to.

“None of it changes the fact of what I saw,” she scowled up at him again, and this time the blade did inch forwards. 

“Tell me, Rey,” he said quickly, holding firm even as the heat of the blade brushed sparks over his exposed neck. 

“I saw —” her eyes shut against the onslaught of images that he knew were exploding behind her eyes. Whatever Palpatine had planted there was almost certainly a powerful deception. “I — I can’t describe it. The images, they’ve always been…”

Ben reached momentarily into her force signature and met a wall of fear and confusion, anger fleeing swiftly from her heart. But she held him back against the groundswell of whatever these images were that troubled her so. 

She continued to fight for words that wouldn’t come. 

Ben knew what he had to do. 

“Show me.”

Her hazel eyes met him wide and glossy with fear. For a moment it seemed she would throw him off, give into the power of the saber in her hands and run him through. It passed in a fleeting instant, and what was left was pure Rey. 

She nodded once, and to his immense relief, finally extinguished the saber and dropped it to the ground with a rattle. She took a deep breath, and Ben felt the walls between him and her mind fall away completely. He took it as all the invitation needed, and raising a hand in front of her head, he gently dipped into the depths of her memory beyond. 

***

The entire world seemed to shift sideways, rolling like a ship caught in a spin, shuddering to a halt every few seconds for a brief glimpse of some patched-up, far off memory. 

A series of vignettes past his eyes first. A young man and woman, their faces carrying some measure of Rey’s features. Their features pulled into increasingly worried expressions. Their voices low and whispered late into the night when they thought she was sleeping. Promises to leave soon. 

The vision spun again, this time landing on a dozen flickering images of a younger but no less revolting Sheev Palpatine. Hiding from him behind as many closed doors as the man and woman could put between them. Frightened, always frightened, of whatever cruel intentions lay behind over-sweet words. 

The room tipped again and this time, looking through a crack in a door, he saw the man and woman bent over on a shiny marble floor. Agony filled all his senses. Their pain became his. The bringer of such pain was just out of sight, if only he could inch over a little more, get a little closer. 

He felt himself, or was it the vision of a young Rey herself, inch the door open a hairsbreadth wider, and the sight that met him — them — was like a flickering holo, disjointed and lost in communication. 

The man that stood above them, casting cruel lighting down in streaks of pale blue, was more shadow than living. Foggy and imperceptible, as though someone had reached into this memory long ago and distorted it. But over time, the distortion had faded, leaving only misshapen features in its place. 

Merely one defining feature stood out — a pair of eyes, ringed with fiery yellow irises, glared cruelly down at the pair. 

Ben dug deeper into the vision, pulling on the strings of distortion that had been placed there, unwinding and unravelling until finally only the truth could be seen. 

Sheev Palpatine stood above his son and daughter in law, eyes mad with rage. 

Ben sucked in a breath of shock, but in this strange dream-like world, he was not alone. It was as though both his and Rey’s consciousness had melded into one, and each in horror of the undistorted memory. 

The memory of Palpatine before them struck Rey’s mother first, spears of lightning taking hold of her until she collapsed dead to the ground. Anguish and terror clouded every sense, Ben couldn’t be sure where from exactly. From the man kneeling at the feet of his dead wife, pleading with his father to spare him — or from the flickering life force of Rey beside him.

It was as though she was at the same time her past and current self, living and reliving the murder of her parents simultaneously. 

Another force entered the room, dragging his attention away from Rey’s turmoil, and filled him with dread of his own. His grandfather, old and tall and bearded, just as he remembered him, stepped between the two Palpatines, and raised the lightsaber to deflect the lightning back.

Through Rey’s memory, he saw Sheev take the saber from Anakin, slay his son, and then finally, the last moments of his grandfather’s life. A confrontation, a rejected proposal, and a moment later, Anakin Skywalker’s life force extinguished forever and with it, all light in the room. 

The memory washed in a darkness so deep it seemed to come from the very depths of their shared grief, and dragged them both back to the world. 

* * *

Rey’s eyes flew open with a gasp, her heart beating a drum solo against her ribcage as her body tensed and heaved with sobs that threatened to arrive. 

Ben woke from the memory a moment later, his warm, honey eyes blinking back to awareness, darting around the room to orient himself for only a brief moment, before flicking back to hers, and widening with grief. 

Her name on his lips was all it took to tip her over the edge. 

She threw herself against him, any final defenses shattering on impact as she let the sobs overtake her, wracking her body with tremors. Ben’s strong arms wrapped around her as she fell into his tight embrace.

In the midst of the anguish and sorrow, his touch felt like a soothing balm to her skin, his force signature pacifying the fire that ravaged through her mind at the dual, contrasting images that warred with each other. 

As the memory threatened to tear through her again, distorting fact and fiction until it would drive her to insanity, it was his presence alone that grounded her. His hands, tracing steady circles on her back. His heart, beating against her chest, working to slow hers until they beat as one. His lips, pressing kisses wherever they could reach, and murmuring words of solace against her hair, the shell of her ear, her cheek, the tip of her nose. 

She realized belatedly that at some point they had fallen to the ground together, leaning against the bookshelf in a tangle of arms and legs. In fact at this angle, it was hard to argue she wasn’t quite literally tucked into his lap. 

She felt vulnerable like this, almost on the edge of defenseless, but here in his arms, the scent of pine wood and the aura of his force signature wrapping around her, around them, Rey realized she was the farthest thing from defenseless. 

When the images came back to her, bit by bit, she clung tight to him, knowing he wouldn’t let her go. 

For her entire life the image of Anakin Skywalker slaughtering her family had lived behind her eyes, starring in every vivid childhood nightmare and revenge-fueled daydream. Over time the ever-present anger had dulled to a dim flicker, but it was never forgotten. 

All this time she had blamed the Skywalkers for the destruction of her family, her childhood, her happiness, and now —

Now that was shattered. Even awful as it was, at least it had been some talisman, some explanation, something and someone to blame for her misery. Anakin, the Skywalker family. Ben. 

But it had all been a hoax. Wool pulled over her eyes, nothing more. 

The reality of that day was more haunting than she could even imagine, and she buried her face into the crook of Ben’s shoulders as the horror tore through her again and her sobs started up in earnest again.

She didn’t know how long they held each other for, only that it was long enough for her cries to quiet, the tears to dry on her cheeks, and her eyes to droop, heavy with exhaustion. 

Finally, she spoke. 

“I didn’t know,” she mumbled into the crook of his neck, her voice hoarse from crying, “all this time, I didn’t know and I —” another muffled sob forced its way out, but she focused on Ben’s warm hand rubbing another circle over her back, calming her enough to get her next words out — “but _you_ did.”

It was not an accusation, just a statement. 

“I—” his answer lodged itself in his throat. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she pleaded quietly. “All this time, why didn’t you?”

He was quiet for a while, his hands still soothing her as he tried to put together the answer to what she knew was an unfair question. His answer came slow, in pieces. 

“At first I thought you were just like him,” he started quietly, “that you too reveled in the web he always spun in the background of the Senate, of the Republic, of my family’s life. 

She tipped her head up to look at him, his wide amber eyes meeting hers as he continued. 

“Then I thought maybe he’d lied to you about the details. How it happened. _Why_. Many days, though, it was more that I _wished_ you didn’t know. You were so different from what I expected, different from him, and despite what logic begged of me, I wanted to know you.”

His eyes traced over her, full of apology and disbelief until he finally said —

“But I never imagined his deception was so deep, how far he would go to lie and manipulate the truth,” Ben’s voice shook as he said it, “if I had, Rey, I would have _never_ let you go back to him.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, blinking back tears. 

One of his large hands came up to cup her cheek, his thumb wiping away a tear that had slipped down. Her heart stuttered from the steady rhythm it had fallen into his as his eyes took on a passionate, intense edge to them. 

“You think I would have sent you back to him? That I wouldn’t have used one of your trips to the Senate to smuggle you off Coruscant, hidden you away on Alderaan or somewhere until he could be dealt with? You think I’m not going to do the same now? Rey, I don’t ever want you within an _inch_ of his reach again.”

His arms tightened around her, and her pulse jumped in her neck as she soaked in his whispered promises. 

“I _mean it_ , Rey,” he said, his hand slipping back to cradle her head. She felt almost light-headed from the intoxicating feeling of him, everywhere, all around her, tender and loving in a way that somehow felt both new and familiar. 

“I’m not going to let him hurt you like that ever again. You don’t ever have to go back there if you don’t want to, and he’s going to get what’s coming to him if it’s the last kriffing thing I —”

He cut off as Rey captured the rest of his sentence in a bruising kiss. 

It started slow. Nothing more than the soft press of lips against each other. Almost like the first time all over again; tentative and nervous, but earnest and absolute. Ben for his part, kept trying to talk through it, not wanting to cease his fervent promises and reassurances, but after a while he seemed to let himself give in. 

Then, it changed. Transformed by his hunger, Ben kissed her as if it was the ‘ _last kriffing thing_ ’ he would ever do. His tongue licked deep into her mouth and she opened up for him willingly, content to be held and devoured by the man in her arms, swallowed whole until the rest of the world slipped away. 

Her hands tangled into his thick, soft hair, and she felt wholly content to let the touch of him consume her. The light touch of his fingers at the nape of her neck, angling her head to wherever he wanted next. The tiny, insistent circles he drew over her hip, warming the strip of skin underneath her silk nightshirt that had ridden up. 

How pacifying it felt to be wanted, needed, and soothed as she was. His tender touch worked over all her loose, frayed nerves, like a gentle repairman adoringly putting all the pieces of her broken soul back together. Remaking her into something special, something beautiful. 

Something someone could love. 

Unlike the other times they had been in such an embrace, their kisses seemed to plateau, then slow, until Rey felt so lightheaded from the barest of light touches of his lips against hers, and her eyelids felt so heavy, that she teetered on the edge of sleep and awakeness. 

She barely felt him rearranging her so she laid across his arms, and only the lightest jostle as he lifted her into the air. She curled into his chest, drunk with exhaustion, and buried her face into the warmth of his neck as he carried her away from this room. 

Away from the house entirely, it seemed. The nighttime air stung cold against her flesh, but it provided some clarity to the dizziness clouding her head, and she realized through the fog that he was taking her up the ramp to the Millennium Falcon and into the belly of the ship. 

Her eyes slipped open just enough to see through the dim that he was leading them towards a part of the ship she hadn’t been before — the Captain’s quarters. 

The doors of the ship opened easily around them, guiding their passage until they reached the sparsely-lit room, and finally she was laid down again, this time on a soft, worn bed that smelled of must and weathered leather, but instead of tickling unpleasantly at her nose, it wrapped her in a feeling of earthy warmth. The same comforting hint of pine lingered there too, and she let it fill her senses as she snuggled deeper into the bed. 

A blanket pulled up around her shoulders, a kiss pressed against her temple. Hands rubbed circles on her back, returning to their earlier movements with ease. 

Finally, Ben broke the silence between them. 

“I’m going to get our things,” he whispered, “but I’ll return right away.”

Rey blinked through the fog, his words taking long enough to compute that he was already most of the way across the room when she called back to him.

“What do you mean? Our things?” she asked without lifting her head from the pillow, her eyes parted only a sliver to see his tall, broad figure stop and turn back for a moment. 

“I told you Rey, I’m not leaving you here, not anymore,” he stated firmly. She tried to sit up, but the weariness of grief dragged her back down to the bed. 

“Where are we going?” she asked, opening her eyes a fraction wider. Enough to see a look of haunting desperation cross his face, one she was almost certain he didn’t want her to see, as his gaze fixed on some spot across the room, his mind a parsec away. 

“I don't know. But you can’t stay here, not anymore.”

A beat of silence passed before Ben seemed to snap out of the trance, and the door hissed open for him to step through. With that, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw// death 
> 
> Dear friends, I want to offer my sincerest apologies for the significant delay in this update. As some of you may have seen on twitter, in September my grandmother had a stroke and was taken to the hospital. In October it became clear her situation was not going to improve, and I temporarily moved back in with my father in order to help her through the end of her life. He and I have been her primary caregivers for the past two years or so, and as you can imagine those duties have taken up most of my time the past couple months especially. Two weeks ago, she passed away peacefully in her sleep. She had a long life, and she didn't always have it easy, but she was tough as nails and hilarious to boot. She was one of my favourite people in the world and I miss her dearly already, but I'm glad she's in a better place now. 
> 
> I'm slowly returning back to the way my life was before, and finally getting some time to update this fic has been a highlight of this week. Thank you for your incredible patience and love <3


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